| China’s departure tax refund policy was piloted in Hainan in 2011 and was optimized and improved before being introduced nationwide in 2015.The main objective of the policy is to attract foreign tourists to enter China for consumption tourism,narrow the tourism trade deficit,and enhance the internationalization of China’s tourism industry.However,with the implementation of the departure tax rebate policy,the share of China’s inbound tourism market in the domestic,inbound,and outbound tourism markets remains small,and the growth rate is gradually slowing down;the tourism trade deficit continues to widen;and the proportion of merchandise sales revenue in the foreign exchange earnings of international tourism is still not high,which has led some scholars to question the effectiveness of the implementation of the departure tax rebate policy and intensified the discussion on the departure tax rebate policy itself.Based on this,this paper conducts a study on China’s departure tax refund policy.Firstly,the current situation of the implementation of China’s departure tax rebate policy is analyzed on the basis of a review of relevant concepts and basic theories.Secondly,in order to better assess the implementation effect of the departure tax rebate policy,an empirical analysis is used to conduct the study.A panel data of 70 cities in China from 2006 to 2019 was selected to build a multi-period DID model to make an objective measurement and evaluation of the implementation of the departure tax rebate policy,and the following conclusions were obtained: the departure tax rebate policy is conducive to raising the level of inbound tourism consumption in the implementing regions,and its promotion effect is stronger in the short term and weaker in the long term.The effect of the implementation of the tax rebate varies according to the source of visitors,with a stronger effect on foreign visitors and no significant effect on visitors from Chinese Hong Kong,Chinese Macao,and Chinese Taiwan.Finally,drawing on advanced overseas experience,we compare the departure tax refund policies at home and abroad and try to provide specific suggestions for the optimization of China’s departure tax refund policy,including accelerating the legislative process of China’s departure tax refund,raising the legislative level and clarifying the penalties for tax fraud;further improving the tax system elements such as the scope of travelers,starting points and tax refund agents;further improving the existing departure tax refund system and facilitating the implementation of the new system.On the basis of the existing new system of departure tax rebate and pilot services,further enhance the degree of convenience of departure tax rebate;establish a dynamic adjustment mechanism,such as enriching tax rebate commodities according to local characteristics,to ensure the long-term effect of the policy. |
