Faced with this embarrassing situation of "business being shelved", Yang Zhiyong, a researcher at the National Institute of Economic Strategy, said in an interview with China Business Daily that "VAT reform" is the need to improve the tax system and an important measure to promote economic restructuring. Therefore, the relationship between national and local taxes cannot affect the progress of "VAT reform" in any case. However, after the pilot area was expanded by the "camp reform" in August this year, an urgent problem is: how to solve the problem of division of labor and cooperation between national and local taxes.
The impact on local taxation has not yet appeared.
1994 after the tax-sharing reform, the system of China's state taxation bureau split into two, forming a "double taxation" pattern of local taxes and national taxes, which has continued to this day. At present, there are 24 current taxes in China. According to the requirements of fiscal tax sharing system, the 24 taxes are divided into three types according to the actual situation: central tax, central tax, local tax and local tax. In 20 1 1 year, China's value-added tax and business tax account for 42.5% of the total national tax revenue, while the former is the main tax category of national tax, and the latter is the largest local tax category.
From a national perspective, business tax accounts for a high proportion of local taxes in most provinces, especially in economically developed areas such as the southeast coast. After the "camp reform", if the tax collection and management of related industries is placed under the responsibility of the IRS according to the tax types, then the local taxation bureau will inevitably be put on the agenda.
Shi, a well-known tax jurist and deputy director of the Institute of Finance and Taxation of China University of Political Science and Law, said in an interview with China Business Daily that at present, the "reform of the camp is still in the pilot stage of reform, which has little impact on the functions and jurisdiction of the local taxation bureau. "At present, it is only piloted in 10 provinces and cities. With the gradual promotion of the pilot scope, this influence will be expanded and deepened. However, according to the current speed, it will take some time to promote it to the whole country. " He said.
Nevertheless, he predicted with great certainty that when the ultimate goal of "VAT reform" is realized-completely replacing business tax with VAT and relying on the IRS to manage and collect taxes, it will have a great impact on the business of local tax system. Because business tax is the most important tax in the local system at present, especially at the provincial level, other small taxes collected by the local taxation bureau are not very large. In addition, it will take a long time to levy property tax, and the pilot process in Shanghai and Chongqing is still very long. Therefore, there is not much room for growth in mainland taxes in a short time.
"In this context, the reform of the camp will certainly have a great impact on local taxation." He said.
The combination of local tax and national tax is the general trend.
Julia, former deputy director of the Foreign Finance and Taxation Teaching and Research Section of Zhongnan University of Finance and Economics, said in an interview with China Business Daily that the current nationwide promotion of the reform of the camp has further weakened the functions of local tax agencies and brought opportunities for the merger of national tax and local tax.
"Judging from the tax collection of the two tax agencies, the customs duties, consumption taxes and income taxes collected by central enterprises have all become the central fiscal revenue, while the value-added tax, resource tax and local enterprise income tax are shared by the central and local governments and collected by the national tax. Among the taxes collected by local tax authorities, except business tax, they are scattered taxes with great difficulty in collection and management. This year, the national implementation of the reform of the camp will incorporate the business tax' big income' that originally belonged to the main tax category of local taxes into the value-added tax, and the local tax revenue will shrink even more, and the time for reform will appear. " He said.
Judging from the tax cost after the separation of national and local taxes, this merger is also imperative. Julia said that the national tax and local tax have been separated for 20 years. Now the combined tax cost of national tax and local tax is double that of 20 years ago.
Facts have proved that China is one of the countries with the highest tax costs. The cost of taxation accounts for 0.58% of the total tax revenue in the United States, 1. 13% in Japan and nearly 8% in China.
The above statement has also been recognized by Shi. He told reporters that in the long run, due to the sharp drop in business volume in the future, it is a good thing for the local tax system to be merged into the IRS.
"From the perspective of the whole tax collection and management, improvement or reform in the future, the separation of national and local tax agencies in China has brought many negative problems, such as overlapping jurisdiction and unclear jurisdiction, which has brought many repetitions and inconveniences to taxpayers' tax registration, declaration and inspection. In addition, the collection and management costs and tax payment costs have increased significantly. Therefore, in a sense, even if the "camp reform" is not implemented, the actual effect of the current separate operation mechanism of national and local taxes is more harmful than beneficial. " He said.
In the eyes of history, with the advancement of the reform pilot, the problem is no longer whether the national and local taxes should be merged, but how to pilot and expand the pilot, and how to divide industries and regions to finally complete the reform and make this merger more smooth and reasonable. "The merger of national and local taxes will not affect the completion of the central tax revenue. Moreover, in the long run, this is the general trend of China's tax reform, which is feasible in terms of legality, rationality, scientificity and standardization. "
In fact, the above suggestions have been fully promoted and implemented in the 10 area where the "camp reform" is being piloted. After Beijing has made it clear that "the business tax paid by enterprises in the local taxation bureau will be changed to the value-added tax paid by the State Taxation Bureau, and tax-related services such as tax declaration service, invoice supply service and tax consulting service in the transportation industry and some modern service industries will be handed over to the national taxation department for handling. However, local taxes such as urban construction tax, stamp duty and personal income tax still need to be paid at the local taxation bureau. Judging from other areas that are currently preparing for the pilot calculation, most of them are the responsibility of the national tax department.
The "local taxation bureau" is still controversial.
Since the merger of national and local taxes is the general trend. So how can we make this long-overdue "marriage" more scientific and effective?
Julia told reporters in an interview that this merger can actually be very simple. The business of local tax department can be divided into two parts, and some businesses, such as business tax after value-added tax, can be merged with national tax. At the same time, employees who originally collected business tax in the local tax system can also consider merging the past. Secondly, some local taxes and fees related to local finance and local income, such as social security fees, personal income tax, funds, etc., can be incorporated into the local financial system, and relevant tax officials can also arrange them together.
"In the future, local finance can consider setting up an institution similar to the Income Bureau under the Finance Department to collect some local-related taxes and fees. In this way, local tax authorities can be abolished, thus reducing the previous high operating costs and improving efficiency. In addition, the most important thing is to minimize the impact on enterprises and people within the system. " He said.
Xiong Wei, director of the Tax Law Research Center of Wuhan University, has a similar idea. He told reporters that the possibility of merging the national tax into the local tax has been ruled out, so only the local tax will be merged into the national tax. It is better to consider another way of thinking, instead of merging, or not to talk about merging. The local tax still exists or belongs to the Finance Bureau under another name. As a functional organization under the Finance Bureau, it is responsible for collecting various government funds such as social security fees and sewage charges.
"In this way, the local tax department will still exist, but it is not necessary to call the local tax bureau, but it can be called the local income bureau. This not only solves the positioning problem of local tax, but also will not affect the business because of the merger. The original local tax practitioners have not been affected and can continue to exercise their functions of serving local governments. " He said.
Compared with the above suggestions, Shi has a completely different idea. He told reporters that whether the local taxation bureau should be reformed into a toll collection bureau in the future should be considered according to specific circumstances.
"At present, half of the local social security is collected by the social security department, and the other half is collected by local taxes. If the local tax bureau does not exist in the future, the national tax can actually complete the collection task, because the local tax has been collected by the local tax bureau because of its frequent contact with enterprises, and the organization, strength, level and legal system of tax collection and management are very complete. For him, the cost of collection is low, the collection is standardized and the collection is efficient. And the IRS can also do this. In addition, we are now vigorously promoting the reform of fees to taxes. In the future, the promotion of social security fees to taxes should be levied by the tax bureau. " He said.
In addition, Shi does not agree that every place should set up a unified toll collection bureau from top to bottom after the business of local tax bureaus is reduced. He told reporters that unlike taxes, fees are often charged by various departments according to actual conditions. It is obviously inappropriate to set up a department to collect various fees. For example, the Bureau of Land and Resources has a better understanding of the mine situation, but does not understand other charges. The specific way should be, for some industries and some areas with heavy charging tasks, we can adopt the method of partially setting up toll bureaus.