Tax Police System

Tax police is referred to as the specially-established governmentalorgan which is authorized to exercise the state's coercive power to inspectand handle the tax-related illegal activities and crimes according to thelegal procedure. As the various functions of a state further strengtheningas well as the core status of tax revenue in a state's budgeting becomingprominent, establishing a Tax Police regime has been prevalent indeveloped countries where market economy prospers.Although in Mingguo Period an "anti-smuggling brigade" served asthe former tax police in China, but it did not manage to survive. WithChina's integration into the world tax states and bringing its taxation inline with the international practices, the establishment of specialized taxpolicing, which fully demonstrates the imperativeness of tacklingtax-related crimes, the special particularities of tax-related cases and theinspector function that should be embraced in tax-related work, canensure effective implementation of the tax law and better solutions to theproblems existing in the coordination between the tax authorities and thepublic security organs. Considering feasibility, establishing a tax policeregime will help combine public security organs' strengths ininvestigation with the professional excellence of tax authorities;meanwhile, amendments to the Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Law,and other laws and regulations provide direct legal basis for a tax policesystem; the successful experiences of the tax authorities at different locallevels with the local public security organs when cracking down on thetax-related crimes have been valuable reference for the establishment oftax police agencies.A comprehensive study of the tax police system in Italy, Russia,Germany, Japan, the United States and other countries leads to thefollowing categorization of tax police system: Independent Tax Systemand Tax Inspectorate System, both in favor that the tax police systemshould be based on respective state's national conditions and the taxpolice should be granted greater tax investigation right. Although Chinahas initiated innovation into the current tax police system in south-west Guizhou region and has achieved moderate success, however, the overallpicture is not that exciting: there is still no clear enforcement body, nounified institution, and no satisfactory interpretation of tax investigation.The author of this thesis believes that it is more appropriate to regard taxpolice as one of the tax administration organs, and the Ministry of PublicSecurity and the State Administration of Taxation jointly establish a taxpolice force, co-managed but mainly under the administration of the StateAdministration of Taxation, implementing the vertical leadership withinthe system and leaving the state tax bureaus at different local levels incharge of local tax affairs. Meanwhile, it is necessary to further specifyand identify the power and obligations of the tax police, cultivate moretax professionals, upgrade the technical equipment, and establish as soonas possible an independent judiciary to protect the tax system.