Research On The Adjustment Of Consumption Tax Levy Scope

Since it was first levied in 1994, consumption tax has played a positive role in guaranteeing fiscal revenue, protecting environment, conserving resources, narrowing the gap between the poor and the rich, promoting social equality, guiding people’s concept and patterns of consumption. However, with the development of economy and residents’consumption level, the problems in the consumption tax system have become more and more prominent day by day, including narrow expropriation scope, narrow tax basis, and unsound tax rate structure. Consumption tax is in the urgent need of reform, because of its weak regulating effect.The levy scope of consumption tax is the core content of consumption tax system and the concrete reflection of its levy and regulation scope. The levy scope of consumption tax cannot be neither too wide nor too narrow. The extensively narrow or wide levy scope will be no good to the development of economy and society. Despite of three times’significant adjustments of consumption tax, they don’t reach the designated position. Further adjustments are needed. Therefore, the thesis focuses on the adjustment of levy scope of consumption tax in the hope of providing beneficial reference to the improvement of consumption tax system.The thesis consists of five parts as follows:The first part is introduction. It mainly introduces the research background and its significance, reviews the relevant researches home and abroad, as well as the research content, methodology, innovation points and limitations.The second part concentrates on the theoretical analysis of consumption tax. It explains its properties, mechanism of action, and functions.The third part is the analysis of consumption tax’s levy scope in China. It introduces all the previous adjustment content of the levy scope, analyzes its main characters, and points out the main problems.The fourth part is the levy scope of consumption tax abroad and some experiences. It introduces the basic conditions of foreign consumption tax systems and the levy scope of consumption tax in the U.S. and Japan, analyzes the features of the levy scope abroad, and summarizes the basic experiences available for reference in China.The fifth part is the conception of adjusting the levy scope of consumption tax. Firstly, it states the basic objective of the levy scope adjustment, i.e. promoting environment protection, energy saving and social equality, and guiding healthy consumption. Secondly, the concrete conceptions of adjusting the levy scope are proposed, i.e. including high-pollution consumer goods, energy-intensive consumer goods, luxury goods and high-end consumer behaviors into the levy scope, and excluding daily necessities. The special adjustment role of consumption tax should be played so as to promote the sound development of economy and safeguard the harmony and stability of society.The innovative point of this thesis lies in the application of Principles of Economics and Theory of Taxation to the study of the levy scope of consumption tax according to China’s current reality. The basic objectives and concrete conceptions proposed in this thesis are consistent with the development objective in China’s society and feasible. As the thesis focuses on the theoretical study, the empirical study is less. The adjustment of the levy scope mainly focuses on its adjustment direction. It proposes the consumer goods and behaviors that should be included in the levy scope and the ones that should be excluded. The concrete items to be included in the levy scope remain to further studied.