The Substance Of The Statutory Principle Of Taxation And The Path To Implementation

The principle of statutory taxation arises and develops under a federal system.However,under a unitary state structure,the meaning of the principle of statutory taxation will change.Therefore,the precondition for the implementation of the principle of statutory taxation is to clarify the meaning of the principle of statutory taxation in the Chinese context.At the present stage,China faces two dilemmas in the process of implementing the principle of statutory taxation.One is that the legislature’s horizontal enabling legislation is out of order.The second is that vertically,localities do not have the power to legislate on taxation.These dilemmas are in turn closely related to the misunderstanding of the connotation of the principle of statutory taxation.On the one hand,the principle of statutory taxation is not the same as the legalisation of tax rules.The essence of the principle of statutory taxation is to prevent the "arbitrariness" of the executive in the collection of taxes by the legislature.On the other hand,the implementation of the principle of statutory taxation in unitary states does not mean that local tax legislation is excluded.On the contrary,in a unitary state,the principle of statutory taxation is compatible with local tax legislation.In fact,the institutional obstacles to the implementation of the principle of statutory taxation in China lie in the following two aspects.Firstly,the special mandate in tax legislation has left the legislative function of the supreme legislature in a state of limbo;secondly,the mismatch between the powers of affairs and the powers of finance has created a tension between the tax division system and the principle of statutory taxation.Therefore,restricting and properly handling the existing problems of special legislative authorization and optimizing the tax division system between the central and local governments will be the main direction of China’s implementation of the statutory principle of taxation.