Research On The Regional Tax Horizontal Transfer In China

Since the 18th National Congress,the state has attached great importance to social equity.The Third Plenary Session of the 18 th CPC Central Committee stressed the need to promote higher quality,more efficient,more equitable and more sustainable development of the national economy.The “ 13 th Five-Year Plan ”proposed that we should deal with the relationship between fairness and efficiency,strengthen the adjustment of redistribution,and strive to narrow the income gap between all parts of the country.The report of the 19 th National Congress once again stressed this issue and proposed to promote more equitable and reasonable income distribution and encourage hard work and law-abiding to become rich.In 1994,China carried out the reform of tax distribution system,established the basic institutional framework for the relationship between central and local fiscal distribution under the conditions of a market economy,promoted the development of China's economy,and enhanced the macro-control ability of the central government.However,the reform of the tax distribution system was not thorough and did not involve the issue of tax horizontal distribution among governments at the same level.In recent years,with the rapid development of China's market economy,the phenomenon of vicious tax competition between local governments and the phenomenon of cross-regional operation of enterprises have become more and more common,which have made the incompleteness of the tax distribution system reform increasingly prominent.At present,the problem of regional tax horizontal transfer is serious in China.The tax revenue shows the phenomenon of transfer from the central region to the eastern region and from the underdeveloped region to the developed region.Regional tax horizontal transfer has further exacerbated the economic gap between regions,at the same time intensified the contradictions between regional governments,not conducive to the effective allocation of social resources,and hindered the coordinated and stable development of regional economy.Therefore,the research on the issue of regional tax horizontal transfer is conducive to improving China's fiscal and taxation system and achieving coordinated and stable development of the regional economy.This paper first introduces the related concepts and theories of tax horizontaltransfer.While defining the scope of this article,it also provides theoretical support for the analysis of the causes and effects of tax horizontal transfer.Secondly,this paper selects the relevant data of 31 provinces and cities in China from 2009 to 2018,and measures the total tax,value-added tax and corporate income tax respectively from three dimensions of deviation degree,deviation from quota and dispersion coefficient of tax revenue and tax source,so as to measure the direction and degree of regional tax horizontal transfer in China.The results show that the tax revenue in China shows a trend of transferring from the central region to the eastern region and from the less developed provinces to the developed provinces.Both value-added tax and corporate income tax have intensified the degree of regional tax horizontal transfer to a certain extent,while corporate income tax has a greater impact.On this basis,on the one hand,this paper analyzes the causes of the tax horizontal transfer,mainly from the four aspects of fiscal and taxation system design,enterprise production and operation,regional development differences and tax competition.On the other hand,it analyzes the adverse effects of tax horizontal transfer on the coordinated development of regional economy,the upgrading of local industrial structure and the financial system of local governments.Finally,this paper analyzes the practices of the United States,Germany,and the United Kingdom in solving the problem of tax horizontal transfer,and then summarizes the successful experience that China can learn from.On this basis,this paper puts forward countermeasures and suggestions to solve the problem of regional tax horizontal transfer in China from three aspects: first,further improve the tax distribution system,establish a system of matching government revenue and expenditure responsibilities,continue to optimize the turnover tax system,coordinate regional tax preferential policies,and improve tax collection management.Second,establish a cross regional tax coordination mechanism.On the one hand,formulate cross regional tax coordination rules to provide the institutional basis for the coordination mechanism.On the other hand,establish cross regional tax coordination agencies to coordinate the tax benefits of all parties and promote the rational distribution of tax revenue.Third,improve the transfer payment system.First of all,strengthen the legal construction of transfer payment,ensure the standardization and authority of the transfer payment system,then increase the proportion of general transfer payments and adjust the financial resources of various regions.Finally establish the horizontal transfer payment system,reverse offset the horizontal transfer of tax revenue,and balance the financial level of various regions.