| Shipping is one of the most important modes of bulk cargo transportation in the world.The development of shipping industry is closely related to the national economy and foreign trade.In recent years,although Chinese shipping industry has made remarkable achievements in many aspects,it still has a certain gap with traditional shipping powers.Therefore,drawing on international legislative experience and improving relevant laws are great important to fully implement the Belt and Road initiative and accelerate the construction of the Maritime Silk Road.Taxation is an important lever to adjust the national economy.As an important support to the development of Chinese the Belt and Road initiative,the shipping industry has become the supported industry in Chinese next stage of economic development.This must include tax support.Therefore,how to stimulate the development of shipping enterprises through tax policy has become a topic of practical significance.The promulgation of the Ship Tonnage Tax Law is one of the important achievements of the tax reform.The traditional tonnage tax system adopted by China is a behavior tax imposed on the use of Chinese waterway facilities by ships,while modern tonnage tax system adopted by many countries internationally takes tonnage tax as the main tax type of shipping companies and cancels its obligation to pay traditional tax categories such as income tax,which greatly reduces the tax burden of shipping companies.The big difference between the two makes the law controversial from drafting to implementation.Therefore,comparing the differences between thetwo-ton tax system,summarizing the development trend of the ship-ton tax collection system,and learning from the excellent experience of foreign related legal systems will help resolve the disputed issues and improve the ship tax collection system in China.In order to achieve the research objectives,this paper consulted the multinational ship tonnage tax law regulations,referenced a large number of Chinese and English literature,and adopted a variety of legal research methods such as normative analysis method and comparative research method to compare the traditional and modern tonnage tax collection system.Based on Chinese situation,I explore the choice of the ship tonnage tax system and policy in China and put forward a shallow view of the next round of tax reform on shipping industry.Specifically,the paper is divided into four chapters in addition to the introduction.It studies the tax system design and the regulations of the traditional ship tonnage tax system and the modern ship tonnage tax system,and analyzes the tax law principles behind the system.The structure of each chapter is as follows:The first chapter introduces the disputes over the tonnage tax on ships in China and the analyze the current situation of Chinese shipping industry.First of all,it sorts out the legislative evolution of the tonnage tax and the specific regulations of the current law.It points out that the traditional tonnage tax system is adopted in China.With the acceleration of the rule of law,the legislative level of ship tonnage tax is also constantly improving.The Ship Tonnage Tax Law is one of the major achievements in the implementation of the legal principle of taxation.Then,it analyzes the current situation of Chinese shipping industry and expounds the domestic disputes over the current tonnage tax system and its reasons,that is,Chinese shipping industry is big but not strong,soft power is weak and hard power is flat,and the heavy tax burden leads a large number of ships out.Differently,most of strong shipping countries adopt modern tax system,under this tax system,shipping companies have a lighter tax burden and stronger self-management ability.Therefore,adopting modern tonnage tax system is always been a strong demand of shipping companies,but the current law has followed the traditional tonnage tax system.In response to this contradiction,the author directly shows that: At this stage,the implementation of the traditional shiptonnage tax system is practical significance,but in the long run,the implementation of modern tonnage tax system is more conducive to the development of shipping industry.The second chapter analyzes the collection mode of modern ship tonnage tax system and compares the differences between two different ship tonnage tax systems from the tax structure and legislative practice.First of all,the modern tonnage tax system has two modes,namely the Greek model and the Dutch model.The Dutch model actually calculates the taxable amount based on the proposed annual profit of the ship.It is similar to the traditional corporate income tax and is therefore adopted by more countries.Secondly,by combing the relevant laws and regulations on the modern tonnage tax system of the three strong shipping countries,the Greece,the Netherlands and the United Kingdom,the structural framework of the modern ship tonnage tax system was set up as a whole and the characteristics of this tax system were pointed out.Then,the two legal systems closely related to the modern tonnage tax system in ship financing and depreciation are introduced,namely the special fund for ships and the accelerated depreciation system.Finally,through vertical comparison,the differences of the tax category,taxable object,tax calculation,tax administration etc.are clarified.The effectiveness of the two tax systems in China,the United Kingdom and India are analyzed.Under the traditional tonnage tax system,the tonnage tax is a small tax at the end of the income ranking in China,and has little effect on the overall taxation of the shipping industry.Under the modern tonnage tax system,the ship's tonnage tax is the main tax of shipping companies.The low tax rate reduces the tax burden of enterprises and attracts a large number of ships for naturalization.The third chapter combines the theory of tax law to analyze the legal basis behind the two tax systems,and takes my argument further based on the overall rule of law environment of Chinese shipping industry from a more macroscopic and developmental perspective.Specifically,from the perspective of tax design itself,the modern tonnage tax system is more in line with the essential requirements of modern rule of law: in terms of tax legal relationship,the tax paid by shipping companies isthe price on the public goods provided by the government.The legal status of enterprises and the government is equal.The state should levy taxes in a way that encourages enterprises to actively perform tax debts.Under the modern tonnage tax system,the self-management ability of shipping enterprises can be enhanced and the tax burden can be greatly reduced.Therefore,the voluntary compliance costs of enterprises are low and it is more conducive to the development of the shipping industry.While in terms of the nature of taxation,the spillover effect of the modern tonnage tax system is relatively large,which not only can drive the development of related industries but also effectively solve the problem of “flag of convenience”,and such tax system makes Enterprises undertake the obligation to train crew members,which also contributes to the improvement of Chinese shipping soft power.However,the law must meet the needs of the staged development of society.Therefore,based on the overall process of Chinese tax reform,the implementation of the traditional ton tax system at this stage is more practical: First,under the Chinese tradition of center of obligation,the tax burden in China is relatively heavy,the consciousness of tax law is not strong.The current tax reform is mainly based on the improvement of tax types and the optimization of tax system,and does not involve fundamental changes to a certain tax category.At this time,if modern tax system is used prematurely,though it can reduce the tax burden of the shipping industry,to a certain extent,it is detrimental to social equity.Secondly,the Chinese legalization should be steady and orderly.The main goal of this round of tax reform is to implement the statutory principle of taxation and accelerate the realization of taxation legalism.Income tax is the traditional tax of enterprises,while the modern tax system lacks legislative and practical experience.If the design of modern tonnage tax system is not enough to constitute the incentive for shipping companies to choose.It is difficult to escape the fate of the display,which will hinder the process of taxation legalism and is not conducive to the implementation of tax legal results.Moreover,the modern tonnage tax system is the choice of strong shipping countries with a high level of legalization and strong self-regulation of market.China has no relevant legislation and practical experience and the supporting legal system is not perfect,the judicial and lawenforcement levels need to be improved while the facilities have yet to be upgraded.At this stage,the use of modern tonnage tax system will result in higher legal costs,and even affect the overall operation of the shipping economy,which is contrary to the principle of tax efficiency.The fourth chapter,based on the national conditions,puts forward shallow suggestions on the choice of tax system and the tax collection and administration.That is: the law is incomplete,it needs to be based on the development stage of the whole society and should keep advanced in the process of discovering and solving problems.At this stage,the traditional tonnage tax system is more in line with the needs of Chinese social development.Therefore,under this tax system,the specific provisions of the ship tonnage tax law should be further refined,the intelligent and integrated model of tonnage tax collection and management should be comprehensively promoted.The tax burden of shipping enterprises should be released to achieve structural tax reduction in shipping industry.At the same time,in order to create the law environment which is suitable for the operation of modern tonnage tax system,this tax system can be implemented in cities with higher levels of economic development level and better development of shipping industry to accumulated reform experience.when it is mature,this tonnage tax system can be promoted throughout the country.The law is an important part of the superstructure and it is inherently incomplete.Only by comprehensively measuring political,economic,cultural and other factors can we accurately grasp the correct way to law reform and make it conform to the staged needs of social development.The focus of this paper is: To clarify the difference between two ship tonnage tax systems by comparing the tax structure and legislative practice of them,on this basis,I analyze the legal principles behind two tax systems and explore the legal basis of tax system selection for the theoretical reference in future legal reform.At the same time,on the basis of consulting a large amount of literature,I try to propose more practical suggestions that are in harmony with the existing legal framework system in order to effectively reduce the tax burdern of shipping industry under the general trend of structural tax reform. |
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