The Research On Our Country’s Vertical Division Of Tax Legislative Power

Tax legislative power is an important part of state legislative power. It refers tothe power of enacting, explaining, supplementing, revising, abolishing tax regulatorydocuments by state authority (or parliament and other representative institutions) andthe other institutions exercising function of tax legislation according to law orauthorization. Vertical division of tax legislative power means the configurations oftax legislative power between the central authority and local authority. In our country,the current vertical division of tax legislative power does not work in a good way, andthere are still plenty of problems in it. The basis of vertical division has beenviolating principles of Rule of Law and legal tax; the power is highly centralized,meanwhile the local authorities seriously lack of tax legislative power. However, thereality is that the local governments performance tax legislative power by illegal way.In nowadays, it is no doubt that the functions of public service and economicmanagement of local governments are enhancing. But their tax legislative power isalmost the same as before. That lags far behind the requirements of the publicfinances.Reasonable division of tax legislative power between the central and localauthorities is inevitable for the construction of public finance. Within the frameworkof the current legal system in China, the local authorities exercising tax legislativepower is constitutionality and in conformity with spirit of the Legislation Law.Through comparative analysis between America, Japan, Germany and other countrieson the model of vertical division of tax legislative power, it can be summed up suchsuccessful experiences, that are (1) to qualify for their own level of democracy andRule of Law,(2)to obey legal tax principle,(3)to structure local tax system,(4)to builda perfect balance of power mechanism etc. Upon the basis of foreign countries’experiences,combining the situation of our country, we should perfect verticaldivision of tax legislative power from the following points:(1)specify principles ofvertical division of tax legislative power through the Basic Tax Lawprovisions,(2)structure local tax system composed mainly of property tax,(3)make thelimits of tax legislative power of central and local authorities,(4) establish legislative,judicial and public supervision mechanism for local tax legislative power.