Study On The Tax Audit Risk: Concept And Enforcement

For a long time, the academic research of the risk theory usually is focused more on the enterprise risk than the law-enforcement risk of the administrative subjects, let alone the tax audit risk on which the study is few and far between. Having not formed the complete set of theoretical system, the foreign research on the tax audit risk fairly lags behind compared with the practical requirements. Meanwhile, the risk management of the tax inspection law-enforcement is still in the bud and its true "speared out" still needs more time.Since the National Tax Bureau and the Local National Bureau were established separately in 1994, the local tax inspection departments have been set up one after another. From the view of the administrative enforcements of the tax inspection departments over the years in China, the administrative enforcements'work of the tax inspection bureaus is improving and strengthening, but there are still many problems. Along with the enhancement of tax legalization, the publishment and enforcement of the new"tax audit work rules"and the growing awareness of the administrative counterparts who want to protect their own lawful rights, the tax inspection administration of law is set a higher request. Additionally with the State Bureau of Taxation promoting the tax administrative responsibility and strengthening the supervision and restraint of the tax enforcing power for the past years, the tax audit risk has been increasing. How to understand and avoid risk has become an important issue that needs to be studied and solved seriously by the tax audit system and its staff in the process of carrying out their functions under the new situation.Analyzing the cases and the tax departments'attention degree of the tax audit risk, the paper puts forward the causes and significances of probing into the tax audit risk. Then, discussing the foundational theories of risk and the tax inspection, the paper raises the concept, meaning and features of the tax audit risk. Besides, analyzing the internal, external and implementary systems of the tax inspection on the basis of New Institutional Economics Theory, the paper submits the causes of the tax audit risk and the countermeasures and suggestions to guard against the tax audit risk.The paper is divided into four parts. The first part: the passage proves the existence of the tax audit risk and its harm supported by a case on auditing. Based on the general situation of tax audit risk, discusses the reasons for the tax audit risk and significance. Next, from the aspects of the administrative reconsideration of the tax departments, the trials of the law suits, the tax collection and management, the duty crimes of the tax staff and so on, the passage represents the current situation of the tax audit risk and expounds the causes and meanings of posing the tax audit risk.The second part:the concept of the tax audit risk. First of all, starting from the risk theory, the passage states the contents of risk and tax law-enforcement risk and leads to the concept and characteristics of the tax audit risk on the basis of the tax audit responsibility.The third part: the analysis of formation causes for the tax audit risk based on the New Institutional Economics. Firstly, based on the theoretical background of the New Institutional Economics, the passage sets forth several concepts of the internal system, the external system, the implementary system, the institution and the human behavior, and stresses on the analysis of the intrinsic mechanism that the institution influences the tax audit risk. Secondly, the passage takes the empirical analysis to the institutional factors that influences the tax audit risk and puts forward that there are the lag of the internal system, the lack of the external system and the softening of the implementation mechanism in the field of the tax audit risk. The passage considers that the internal system includes the relative hysteretic construction of the tax revenue culture and the weak risk consciousness of the tax audit system, the imperfectness of the external system contains the tax system to be improved and the weakening of the tax auditors'incentive system, and the softening of the implementation mechanism reflects in the suboptimal law-enforcement of the whole society, the feeble internal control of the tax audit departments and the lagging-behind of improving the tax auditors'quality.The forth part: the countermeasures to guard against and avoid the tax audit risk efficiently. As the core of the paper, the passage is directed against the tax audit risk causes supported by the New Institutional Economics in the second part and comes up with the countermeasures and suggestions to precaution the tax audit risk, which consist of seven aspects: the completeness of the tax revenue culture whose core is the tax moral culture, the foundation of the risk management system, the control of the audit risk, the consummating of the basic tax system, the improving of the tax auditors'incentive system, the reform of the tax audit management system to reduce administrative interference, the enhancing of the audit internal control depending on the informatization techniques and the people-oriented promoting of tax auditors'quality.