Measure 1: Improve the individual tax system and narrow the income gap.
Generally speaking, China's tax revenue plays an obvious role in organizing fiscal revenue, but its function of regulating personal income gap has not been effectively exerted, which can be reflected in the collection of personal income tax in China. Because personal income tax directly taxes personal property income, and all social wealth distribution is ultimately reflected in the distribution of personal income, the individual tax system plays a direct and significant role in adjusting the income gap and narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor.
However, two problems in China's tax system have seriously weakened the role of individual income tax. On the one hand, China's tax system structure is unreasonable, and taxation relies too much on indirect taxes such as value-added tax and business tax, while personal income tax, as a direct tax, accounts for a low proportion of national fiscal revenue. For example, in the central fiscal revenue in 2009, personal income tax only accounted for 6.6%; On the other hand, the tax system itself has obvious defects.
Therefore, on the one hand, China should optimize the tax structure and increase the proportion of personal income tax in the total tax revenue without increasing the overall tax burden; At the same time, promote the reform of individual income tax law, scientifically and reasonably select taxpayers, realize the transformation of individual income tax from classified collection to a tax system combining classification and synthesis, rationally design tax rates, adjust tax rate grades, and increase the intensity of individual income tax to adjust income distribution.
Measure 2: Promote the reform of consumption tax and curb unreasonable consumption expenditure.
Consumption tax is levied on consumers' consumption expenditure, and buyers of taxable consumer goods generally have higher consumption demand and consumption level, that is, observable income level. Therefore, the consumption tax can adjust the unfair social distribution to a great extent, and partially make up for the failure of personal income tax on illegal income such as gray and black. However, at present, the scope of consumption tax collection in China is small, the tax rate structure is unreasonable, and the use of in-price taxation restricts the full play of consumption tax. In view of this, China should study and expand the scope of consumption tax collection, such as entertainment consumption, high-end clothing, overseas tourism, luxury yachts, high-end villas and other consumption items, which can be considered to be included in the scope of taxation; For luxury consumption, the tax rate can be appropriately increased; In the way of acquisition, it is suggested that the hidden in-price acquisition should be transformed into out-of-price acquisition to improve its acquisition effect.
Measure 3: levy property tax in a timely manner to prevent "real estate speculators" from squeezing "squatters"
As a bulk property, the house is generally the "big head" of personal property, and the possession of real estate often reflects the distribution of social wealth. Therefore, taxing real estate is an important means to adjust the income gap. At the same time, by levying property tax on individual housing, especially high-grade housing and multiple houses, the cost of housing ownership of speculators can be increased, thus curbing the irrational and excessive rise of speculative housing and real estate prices, making ordinary people affordable and preventing speculators from squeezing "humble abode".
Measure 4: study the collection of inheritance tax to avoid excessive concentration of wealth.
Inheritance tax is another sharp weapon to adjust the gap between the rich and the poor. Its reasonable collection can effectively achieve the purpose of "robbing the rich to help the poor" and prevent the wealth from being continuously concentrated through intergenerational accumulation. It is reported that at present, about two-thirds of countries and regions in the world levy inheritance tax, and its main target is only a few high-income people. In 2004, China promulgated the "Provisional Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Inheritance Tax (Draft)", but it was controversial and the legislative progress was slow. In view of the prominent gap between the rich and the poor, the increasingly prominent social contradictions, and the rapid economic development that has trained a number of "rich" high-income earners, China should speed up the study of levying inheritance tax.
* * * Enjoy social wealth in the secondary distribution of fiscal expenditure.
Measure 5: Continue to promote the construction of new countryside and promote the coordinated development of urban and rural areas and regions.
An important manifestation of the gap between the rich and the poor in China lies in the large gap between urban and rural areas and regions. To adjust the gap between the rich and the poor and promote social harmony, we need to make more fuss about urban-rural and regional integration. We should continue to promote the construction of new countryside, and take the investment in agriculture, countryside and farmers as the top priority of financial expenditure arrangement, especially in areas with a large proportion of rural population. We will continue to improve and perfect the fiscal and taxation policies and legal systems for coordinating the integrated development of urban and rural areas and the balanced and coordinated development of the regional economy, and increase fiscal and taxation policies and financial support for the vast rural areas, the development of the western region, the rise of central China, and the revitalization of the Northeast.
Measure 6: Strengthen urban and rural poverty alleviation and ensure the basic livelihood of low-income groups.
The number of poor people and their proportion to the total population is a direct reflection of the fairness of social wealth distribution. For a long time, poverty has been an important factor that has troubled China's economic development and social harmony. According to the United Nations report, in 2009, China still had a population of 2 1 100 million, and about 15.9% of the population lived below the poverty line. In order to promote social equity and achieve social harmony, China still needs to further strengthen poverty alleviation work and increase investment in poverty alleviation in the future. To this end, we should continue to strengthen the protection of rural residents, improve the level of food subsidies, agricultural production materials subsidies, agricultural machinery subsidies and home appliance purchase subsidies, and expand the scope of subsidy projects; Continue to expand the scope of urban minimum living security and raise the standard of security.
Measure 7: Optimize the structure of fiscal expenditure and focus on solving people's livelihood problems.
To alleviate the gap between the rich and the poor and social contradictions, we need to focus on solving the most concerned, direct and realistic interests of the broad masses of the people, give priority to ensuring basic public services, and gradually improve the development of social undertakings and the level of people's livelihood security with the enhancement of the country's financial capacity. At present, efforts should be made to solve basic livelihood problems such as medical care, housing and education, and to prevent the problems of "returning to poverty due to illness", "returning to poverty due to housing" and "returning to poverty due to school". Accordingly, it is necessary to strictly control the costs of administrative organs, and reduce and standardize expenses such as conference fees, personnel entertainment fees, and overseas study fees. Strengthen the audit and supervision of administrative office funds to prevent the expansion and waste of general administrative funds, and then use more financial funds to protect people's livelihood and promote domestic demand.
Measure 8: Improve the social security system and increase social security expenditure.
At present, China's financial expenditure on social security is also insufficient, which restricts the role of social security system in regulating the gap between the rich and the poor and alleviating social contradictions. For example, in 2009, the proportion of social security expenditure in China's central fiscal expenditure structure was only 7.5%, while the United States exceeded 30% and Germany exceeded 50%. In contrast, the shortage of social security expenditure in China is undoubtedly exposed. In order to effectively alleviate the gap between the rich and the poor and ensure people's basic livelihood, China should give full play to the important role of social insurance, social welfare, social relief and social preferential treatment systems in making up for the defects of market distribution and maintaining the relative fairness of social income distribution, especially to continuously improve social insurance systems such as endowment insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, work injury insurance and maternity insurance, and increase financial input into social insurance.
Measure 9: Increase the transfer payment and promote the equalization of public services.
In China's current tax-sharing structure, the central government has concentrated its main financial resources, and local finance, especially county and township finance, is stretched. The strong financial resources of the central government and provincial governments are conducive to adjusting the surplus and realizing regulation. However, due to the lack of financial transfer payment and irregular transfer payment sequence, financial resources are "concentrated at different levels and intercepted at different levels", so that the phenomenon that "provinces and cities have money to build squares and counties and townships have no money to build primary schools" is widespread, which greatly reduces the role of finance in regulating the gap between the rich and the poor and optimizing resource allocation. In view of this, we should gradually increase the proportion of local governments, especially grass-roots governments, in financial allocation, and increase the transfer payment from the central government to local governments and superiors to subordinates, so as to promote the realization of the goal of equalization of public services.
First, China can create more economic opportunities for all its citizens. We will further relax the hukou system to give rural people more opportunities to increase their income and improve their living standards. In the long run, the income gap between urban and rural areas can be narrowed. Providing the floating population with the same social services as urban residents can accelerate the population flow. In a certain period of time, it is worth considering to give policy support to cities that accept a large number of floating population. The transition to a service-oriented economy is also very useful.
Second, further improve the accessibility of basic public services. By expanding the coverage of medical insurance, which is currently limited to cities, we can improve everyone's access to basic medical services. We can also consider promoting medical insurance in rural areas, and the central government can initially invest part of it to encourage more people to join the plan.
Third, establish a more targeted and broader social security system. This can not only prevent poverty, but also promote economic growth. China still needs to improve the determination of the minimum living security target. At present, due to the lack of a unified national rural minimum living security policy, rural minimum living security can only rely entirely on local resources.
Due to China's highly decentralized administrative system, the fiscal relationship between governments is crucial for obtaining fairer services. Generally speaking, China government's fiscal expenditure accounts for 22% of GDP, and it has sufficient resources to ensure that all citizens get basic services. However, these resources are unevenly distributed throughout the country. In recent years, the central government has increased financial transfer payments to the poorest areas. Even so, the gap between the rich and the poor is still very prominent-the per capita expenditure of the richest province in China is eight times that of the poorest province, and the gap below the province is also widening. Narrowing the gap and ensuring better use of the redistributed financial resources is a major challenge during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period.
In terms of fiscal expenditure, China should consider the sustainability of the policy of directly providing income support for most people. For example, the recently implemented agricultural subsidy policy. China should carefully design and position the social security system and social safety net being established at present, so that the security system can have sufficient and sustainable funds and encourage people to strive to improve their lives. We should avoid the situation that the "poor marginal" group is poorer than the poor group in the end, because the poor group can enjoy the care of the policy, and avoiding such a poverty trap is very important to encourage the poor group to find jobs.