reasons for the tax system differences between China and the United States
(I) Comparison of consumption tax items between China and the United States
Generally speaking, the tax items of a country's consumption tax law are mostly set based on its own economic policies in a specific period, so as to guide consumption direction, adjust consumption structure and affect production structure. From the consumption tax items of countries all over the world, sugar, soft drinks and their substitutes are the most widely used edible products subject to consumption tax, which is levied in 65 countries; 29 countries levy consumption tax on salt, and 27 countries levy consumption tax on luxury cosmetics and perfumes.
Part D of Title 26 of the United States Internal Revenue Code divides the consumption tax into 39 tax items, covering fuel, environmental tax, communication, transportation, foreign insurance, trucks and trailers and other vehicles, manufacturing, tobacco, gambling, alcohol, port tax and so on. Each tax item also contains many subheads, which are very complicated, and there are hundreds of tax items, large and small. This also reflects the highly developed commodity economy in the United States. In addition, the code also stipulates that the tax items of alcoholic beverages are monopolized by the state and the financial monopoly, which makes the restrictions on such goods harmful to health rise to the height of the state, which is convenient for overall management and worth learning from. Another feature of American consumption tax is that it is earmarked for special purposes. The consumption tax is levied on many taxable items to form specific funds, such as highway trust fund, airport and airline trust fund and silicosis disability trust fund, which are used for the federal expenditure on related projects to avoid the occupation of special funds, which is worth learning.
in comparison, China's consumption tax law stipulates that there are 11 tax items. They are: wine, cigarettes, precious jewelry and jade, cosmetics, skin care products, firecrackers, fireworks, gasoline, diesel oil, automobile tires, motorcycles and cars (including cars, off-road vehicles and passenger cars). Each tax item is further subdivided into 16 subheads, with a total of 23 consumption tax items. They are all determined after selection and modification on the basis of original product tax and value-added tax.
(II) Comparison of consumption tax rates between China and the United States
At present, a common feature of tax reform in countries around the world, led by the United States, is that it has shifted from emphasizing direct taxes in the past to paying equal attention to direct taxes and indirect taxes, even emphasizing indirect taxes. In the reform of commodity tax collection, countries focus on the reform of consumption tax, especially in the tax rate.
judging from the development trend of consumption tax today, it has increasingly highlighted the nature of supporting goods and services tax, and its special adjustment tax function has become increasingly obvious. In Japan, Italy, Belgium and other countries, a part of the consumption tax has been removed from the scope of value-added tax, especially in Japan, although it is still called consumption tax, it is actually a kind of value-added tax. What are the reasons for the differences in value orientation between China and the United States?
There are many reasons. Personally, historical reasons are a very important part. China has a long history of 5, years, while the United States has only a few hundred years, which leads to a relatively popular and fast culture in the United States, while China is more traditional, which can be seen in movies. What are the reasons for the differences between Chinese and American children, such as regional culture?
there are many differences in educational concepts. For example, parents in China want their children to be obedient, while parents in the United States want their children to be independent and have their own personality. There are many others. What are the reasons for the differences in family education between China and the United States?
There are many reasons for the differences in education between countries. Education in China is more because parents of students in China interfere too much for the utilitarian needs of society, while parents of students in the United States interfere less. Reasons for Sino-US trade deficit
Since China implemented the reform and opening-up policy in the late 197s, the economic and trade relations between China and the United States have made great progress. According to the data provided by the website of the Ministry of Commerce of China, the trade volume between China and the United States was US$ 2.45 billion in 1979 and US$ 211.63 billion in 25. In 25, China exported US$ 162.9 billion and imported US$ 48.73 billion, with a surplus of US$ 114.77 billion. According to US statistics, the US trade deficit with China surged by 24.5% in 25, reaching US$ 21.6 billion. In Sino-US trade, the United States had a surplus from 1979 to 1982, and began to show a deficit in 1983. In 1996, the trade deficit reached $39.5 billion. China's statistics show that in the 14 years from 1979 to 1992, China has been in deficit, and it turned into a surplus in 1993, with a surplus of 1.5 billion US dollars in 1996. Obviously, there are obvious differences in the statistics of bilateral trade balance between China and the United States.
1. How big is the actual trade deficit between China and the United States?
The reasons why the US statistical method overestimates the Sino-US trade deficit are as follows: On the one hand, the US generally calculates the entrepot trade volume of China and Hong Kong in Sino-US trade, but in fact a large proportion of it is attributable to the entrepot trade of other countries or regions outside China through Hong Kong; On the other hand, when calculating the import and export of the United States to China, the export amount is calculated according to the FOB price and the import amount is calculated according to the CIF price, so that the double amount of loading and unloading, transportation and insurance expenses is included in the Sino-US trade deficit. The official statistics of China and the United States in the last five years are shown in Table 1, which shows that although the deviation of the trade deficit calculated by the two sides is decreasing year by year, it is still very large, and the existing statistical methods in the United States seriously overestimate the actual amount of the trade deficit between China and the United States.
Even if the trade deficit between China and the United States is corrected (between the two, but closer to the official figure of China) considering the differences in statistical methods, the adjusted trade deficit is still far higher than its true value, mainly due to the international industrial transfer and China's trade pattern. In the process of China's rapid economic development, China has obvious comparative advantages because of its relatively low production costs. Many countries or regions have gradually transferred their manufacturing industries to China. On the one hand, it has transferred their trade surplus with the United States to China; On the other hand, it also promoted the development of processing trade in China. At present, China's processing trade accounts for more than 5% of the total trade volume, most of which are carried out by foreign-invested enterprises. The processing trade mode belongs to the mode of production and trade with two ends outside, that is, raw materials rely on imports and final products are mainly used for export; Moreover, due to low labor costs and large preferential measures such as taxation for foreign-funded enterprises, most of the added value has entered the pockets of foreign businessmen, and the income of employees in China and China is very limited.
From the regional structure of the trade deficit of the United States, the proportion of the European Union, the Middle East and other regions shows an obvious upward trend, while the deficit of Southeast Asia with the United States as a whole shows a downward trend; The trade deficit of the United States with China, in fact, is largely caused by Japan, South Korea and other countries or regions in Southeast Asia. By transferring their manufacturing industries to China, their trade surpluses with the United States have been transferred to China. Because of China's low labor wages and preferential tax treatment for foreign investment, most of the benefits of this industrial transfer and the transfer of trade surplus are obtained by foreign investors and their home countries, but in the balance of payments, it is manifested as the increase of China's surplus.
From the perspective of economic development level and industrial structure between China and the United States, there is a strong economic complementarity between China and the United States: China has a comparative advantage in labor-intensive products, while the United States has a comparative advantage in technology-intensive products. According to the normal mode of international trade, China and the United States focus on the production of products with comparative advantages, and exchange needed goods through trade can greatly promote the economic development of the two countries and improve people's living standards. However, by restricting the export of high-tech products to China, the United States has artificially distorted the reasonable international division of labor between China and the United States; At the same time, due to the international industrial transfer and China's processing trade model, the production and export of high-tech products that China does not have a comparative advantage have risen rapidly. In fact, more than 8% of the high-tech products are exported by two foreign-funded enterprises.
Therefore, the huge trade deficit between China and the United States is mainly caused by three reasons: the export restrictions of the United States on high-tech products have caused a certain degree of trade imbalance between China and the United States, the international industrial transfer and China's processing trade model have substantially expanded the amount of the trade deficit between China and the United States, and the US statistical method has further seriously overestimated the scale of the trade deficit between China and the United States.
Second, the United States has benefited greatly from Sino-US trade
Due to the economic laws such as the stages of economic development, technological progress and industrial structure adjustment, the industrial structure of the United States has undergone tremendous changes, and the proportion of agriculture and manufacturing in GDP and employment has been declining day by day. The American economy is entering the post-industrial era of informationization and service. In the international economic system dominated by the United States and other western developed countries, the United States enjoys great benefits from international division of labor and international trade by importing cheap daily consumer goods and exporting high-tech products with high added value. At the same time, the hegemonic position of the American economy and the US dollar not only enables the United States to fully enjoy this benefit, but also can obtain huge "seigniorage" benefits.
according to the profit theory of international trade, the United States not only enjoys the benefits of international division of labor, but also obtains the profit distribution after participating in international trade. Firstly, it analyzes the exchange gains obtained by the United States in Sino-US trade. China is a developing country with low labor costs, but it is short of funds and relatively backward in science and technology. The United States is an economically developed country with abundant capital and advanced science and technology, but the labor cost is high. China mainly exports labor-intensive products such as textiles, clothing, shoes, toys, household appliances and travel bags to the United States. The United States mainly exports aircraft, power equipment, mechanical equipment, electronic devices, communication equipment and chemical products, as well as agricultural products such as grain and cotton to China. The complementarity and mutual benefit of the trade product structure have effectively promoted the development of trade between the two countries.
The cheap and high-quality goods provided by China to the American market can not only meet the needs of American consumers, but also bring two major benefits to the American economy: First, the United States can shift a lot of resources to high-tech industries, promote the optimization of industrial structure and maintain its international leading position; Second, these cheap and high-quality China exports help to maintain the price stability in the United States, so that the United States can use expansionary fiscal and monetary policies such as low tax rate, high fiscal deficit and low interest rate to maintain its economy and maintain huge military expenditures without worrying about the impact of inflation on the economy.
as far as trade itself is concerned, although the rapid growth of Sino-US trade can promote the economic development of both sides, it is American enterprises that benefit the most from it. More than 5% of China's imports and exports belong to processing trade dominated by foreign capital, and the proportion of processing trade in Sino-US trade is close to 7%. Due to tax relief and land concessions, China * * * gets less benefits from foreign-funded enterprises than domestic enterprises, while China employees get less benefits than people usually expect because of lower wages, longer working hours and social welfare measures that lag behind domestic enterprises. On the contrary, foreign investors enjoy benefits far beyond the accounting books through global transfer pricing, profit sharing and dividend distribution. Of course, the above analysis of the benefits of the United States from Sino-US trade has not included the contribution of China's product exports to the employment and output of the tertiary industries such as warehousing, transportation, wholesale, retail, insurance and finance in the United States.
According to the basic principle of international trade, the US trade deficit means the outflow of US dollars, that is, Americans have to pay for excessive consumption of imported goods. How do they pay for it? The trick lies in the capital and financial accounts of the balance of payments. There are three ways for Americans to pay for the import of goods: first, start the printing machine to print dollar bills, the cost is far less than the value represented by the dollar, and the difference is the seigniorage. The hegemonic position of the dollar and this payment method mean that the United States is taxing other countries or regions; Second, issuing government bonds for other countries or regions to buy, the essence of which is to borrow money from other countries or regions at low interest rates; The third is the exchange of export commodities. As for the trade deficit, it is actually one of the first two ways: either by exporting dollars to tax other countries or regions, or by letting other countries or regions buy American bonds and borrow money from abroad at low interest rates.
One of the reasons why the United States has a huge foreign trade deficit is determined by its basic economic and institutional factors. The adjustment of American industrial structure is mainly manifested in the following aspects: with the vigorous development of the world scientific and technological revolution after the Second World War, the third large-scale industrial transfer in the history of world industrial development, American multinational companies make use of their various monopoly advantages to invest heavily in developing countries, transferring labor-intensive, resource and energy-consuming and polluting industries and low value-added processing industries and processes to developing countries, while focusing on the development of high-tech industries and services at home. This industrial restructuring in the United States has accelerated its import pace. At the same time, after entering the 199s, the United States further utilized its scientific and technological advantages and production advantages to shape the most favorable international division of labor pattern for the United States. The internal trade of multinational corporations and intra-industry trade of foreign countries have become the main reasons for the sharp increase in the US trade deficit. American multinational companies have a large number of subsidiaries around the world. A large number of goods and services originally produced or exported at home are transformed into huge production and export by overseas subsidiaries, and accordingly the imports of American companies from overseas subsidiaries to the United States are increased, thus expanding the "foreign trade deficit" of the United States.
China's export of labor-intensive products is conducive to the adjustment of American industrial structure. Because the United States can use its trade with China to shift labor-intensive industries overseas, and domestic needs can be met by imports, which will help the United States to concentrate its capital and labor, shift to new technology industries and service industries based on knowledge, and adjust its industrial structure.
judging from the main commodity structure of Sino-US trade in recent years, the trade imbalance between the two sides basically belongs to the reasonable international division of labor between China and the United States, and it is the result of China exerting two comparative advantages-the comparative advantage between industries and the comparative advantage within industries. In 22, the top five commodities exported by China to the United States were miscellaneous products (18.44%), office machinery and automatic data processing equipment (11.7%), telecommunication and sound recording and playback equipment (1.74%), shoes and boots (8.7%) and electrical machinery and appliances (8.9%). From the above data alone, the economic and trade pattern of China's exports to the United States, mainly textiles and clothing, has begun to change in recent years, and the export share of computer communication products is on the rise. However, one of the most important problems is that the mainstream of China's high-tech products export is still processing trade, which accounts for 89.65% of the total high-tech products export. Therefore, China's exports to the United States are still mainly labor-intensive products. Among the 2 main products exported by the United States to China from 1997 to 21, the top five exports were aircraft, communication equipment, picture tubes, oil-bearing products and automatic data processing machines. The export of American products to China obviously belongs to technology-intensive and capital-intensive products with high-tech design and marketing and agricultural products with strong international competitiveness. However, due to the strict high-tech export control imposed by the United States on China, it is difficult for the United States to give full play to its comparative advantages with China, and it is difficult to fully reflect the complementary advantages of both products. This is China and the United States.