Tax Reform, Theory And Practice

Within the revenue system of the government, the level of tax burden and the size of various fees, as well as the distribution pattern and management is important issues, involving concerns from enterprises, individuals, central government and local authorities. The ratio of tax to fee has been improper for years. Furthermore, the lacking of necessary regulation and management of the fee system seriously erodes the tax base of the country, decentralize government's ability of controlling financial resouces, influences the performance of the government's function, weakens the Macro-regulatory ability of the government. Meanwhile, it seriously disturbs the public distribution order and business order, which draw our high caution. Premier Zhu Rong Ji pointed out in 1998, "the problem that the fee exceeds tax which burden the citizens too much and they have been complaining a lot, must be dealt with and measures must be taken." And he claimed it as one of the five reform targets of the government. In October 2000,the communisty party further emphasize to continue the fee-to-tax reforms aggressively and stably. But judged by the current situation, there is no substantial steps. Hence I entitle my thesis "Research on theories and practices of tax and fee," in which I'm trying to put forward the goals, principles, assumptions and relative measures of the fee-to-tax reforms. In order to further transform government's functions and perfect the mechanism of government's income, I'll make propositions on targets, principle and other measures for the fee-to-tax reforms, by analyzing both the tax theories and the world practices.The thesis consists of five parts. Part one is theoretic analysis on tax and fee, including 3 sections: the definition of tax and fee, the theoretic basis of tax and fee, the comparison between tax and fee, which set a theoretic foundation to the following analysis and study.Part two Probes the current practical form of tax and fee. It deeply analyzes the cause of the jump of fee beyond taxation, of seriously dislocation of tax and fee, of tax's low percentage in GDP and its decrease year after year. There are may reasons for it, such as that the decrease of income and increase of payment make a good circumstance for fee; imperfect mechanism of finance management, ill-regulated fee-fundmanagement is other's reason; and the interestes among local authorities and departments, interests in themselves play a key pole in illegal fee-charge.Part three considers the goals and principles of the fee-to-tax reforms.Part four probes the tax and fee features in foreign countries. It then sums up some international experiences that can be used as reference. That is, within the finance income, tax weigh majority, fee weigh minority, their relation can't be reversed; all fee-charge items are under centralized management of finance budget; certain powers of tax management are granted to local authority.Part five are suggestions and relative measures of the fee-to-tax reforms. Based on the current status of tax and fee size, practical forms and the causes, referring to international experiences, our country's fee-to-tax reforms measures should be taken in the following five fields: Abolish the unreasonable fee items; Transform some fee items to operation fee or charges collect fees based on laws and regulations; Transform some fee-charge items into tax-charge items; Engage fee-to-tax reforms in rural areas; Regulate the budget management on fee and charge items. As the fee-to-tax reforms is a systematic project, it should work together with system reform, collection and management reform, and fiscal management system reform. Moreover, the retrenchment of the government, the transformation of government's functions are also necessary measures.