美国个人所得税的特点及面临的挑战

美国联邦个人所得税自1913年立法以来,在组收财政收入、调节收入分配和刺激国民经济发展方面发挥了重要作用。但因税制设计过于复杂,纳税人遵从成本和税务征管成本持续上升,税收政策无法实现设定目标,因此,美国政府和民众对所得税改革的呼吁越来越强烈。     

美国税法关于非货币财产出资的规定及启示

目前,我国对非货币财产出资尚没有明确和连贯的税收政策,实践中大部分的非货币财产出资与一般的财产交易不同,具有明显的"权益持续性"特征。笔者认为,对这类财产出资应当借鉴美国联邦公司所得税制度,比照我国企业并购重组特殊税务处理方式,给予递延纳税待遇。     

社会资本慈善捐赠的所得税激励政策探究

社会资本慈善捐赠具有自愿性、公益性,投入公共服务领域,可弥补政府职能缺口,缓解财政收支压力,优化公共服务供给结构。税收政策对社会资本慈善捐赠具有激励作用。但现行所得税政策存在税前扣除比例低、超比例部分结转年限较短、临时性应急性政策过多、税收征管薄弱等问题。应提高慈善捐赠所得税税前扣除比例,延长超扣除比例部分结转年限,规范临时性应急性慈善捐赠税收政策,强化社会资本慈善捐赠的所得税征管。     

对固定资产折旧新政的解读

国家税务总局发布了《关于固定资产加速折旧税收政策有关问题的公告》,如何理解和运用最新的固定资产折旧政策,本文结合会计准则及所得税政策,对公告的内容进行了解读。     

美国劳动所得税抵免制度及其借鉴

美国的劳动所得税抵免制度不仅是一种税收政策,更是一种反贫困的福利政策。从效率角度看,劳动所得税抵免有助于促进低收入者参与劳动;从公平角度看,劳动所得税抵免有助于扶助低收入家庭和贫困儿童,且实施成本较低。本文通过对美国劳动所得税抵免制度的制定、实施方式、发展趋势和制度影响的分析,试图为我国的个人所得税改革寻找一种新的思路。     

中国延税型养老储蓄政策的路径选择

延税型养老储蓄是国家应对人口老龄化的积极政策,即税收政策和养老金政策的有效结合。中国已经进入深度老龄社会,推出延税型养老储蓄政策为时稍晚,路径选择极为重要。本文提出"延期征收个人收入所得税"和"分段征收个人收入所得税"两个路径,并从理论、法律和操作三个方面对两种路径进行比较。通过比较笔者认为分段征收个人收入所得税是最优选择,可供社会讨论和决策参考。     

企业境外所得税收抵免相关问题分析

本文从现行我国企业境外所得税收抵免相关税收政策的执行情况入手,梳理出现行税收政策亟需解决的问题,并借鉴部分国家的经验,提出了进一步完善我国企业境外所得税收抵免相关税收政策的思路和建议。     

国外物流业税收政策的比较与借鉴

在经济全球化迅速发展的今天,物流业的重要性日显突出,许多国家采取包括税收政策在内的各种鼓励措施来促进物流业的发展。本文对国外与物流业相关的流转税和所得税政策进行了比较分析,并对我国建立与完善促进物流业发展的税收政策提出了相关建议。     

完善我国小微企业所得税优惠政策的建议

小微企业在扩大就业、推动技术创新、促进自由竞争等方面发挥着举足轻重的作用。运用所得税优惠政策扶持小微企业是各国的普遍做法。本文在对我国现行小微企业所得税政策进行系统梳理和分析评价的基础上,针对存在的弊端,指出了税收政策扶持小微企业应有的政策导向,并借鉴国际经验提出了一系列完善所得税优惠政策的建议。     

所得税政策对我国融资租赁业发展的制约及改革探讨

从融资租赁业比较发达的国家来看,税收政策尤其是企业所得税政策,对融资租赁业的发展产生重要影响。我国目前制约融资租赁业发展的所得税政策主要表现在折旧、坏账计提和税收抵免等方面,亟待有针对性地进行改革和完善。     

Interaction of Government Tiers and Central Banks in a Federation: An Empirical Test

Fiscal rules are necessary to protect monetary policy from the consequences of unsustainable or active fiscal policy for inflation. Monetary unions, such as the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), require even stronger fiscal rules to avoid free riding by regional fiscal authorities on the common monetary policy. By contrast, in a fiscal federation, the federal government internalises the effect of active regional policies on the overall price level. Federal fiscal policy contributes to price stability either by enforcing fiscal rules or by adjusting its own stance. Following Canzoneri, Cumby and Diba (2001), we test whether federal and regional governments in Germany behave in an active or passive way. We find evidence of a spillover effect of unsustainable policies on other regions. The German federal government offsets the effect on the price level by running passive policies. The Bundesbank's prime objective of price stability is therefore endorsed by fiscal policy. The results have implications for the regulation of fiscal policies in the EMU.     

Tax Setting in a Federal System: The Case of Personal Income Taxation in Canada

In a decentralised tax system, the effects of tax policies enacted by one government are not confined to its own jurisdiction. First, if both the regional and the federal levels of government co-occupy the same fields of taxation, tax rate increases by one layer of government will reduce taxes collected by the other. Second, if the tax base is mobile, tax rate increases by one regional government will raise the amount of taxes collected by other regional governments. These sources of fiscal interdependence are called in the literature vertical and horizontal tax externalities, respectively. Third, as Smart (1998) shows, if equalisation transfers are present, an increase in the standard equalisation tax rate provides incentives to raise taxes to the receiving provinces. A way to check the empirical relevance of these hypotheses is to test for the existence of interactions between the regional tax rate, on the one hand, and the federal tax rate, the tax rate set by competing regions, and the standard equalisation tax rate, on the other hand. Following this approach, this paper estimates provincial tax setting functions with data on Canadian personal income taxation for the period 1982–1996. We find a significant positive response of provincial tax rates to changes in the federal income tax rate, the tax rates of competing provinces, and the standard equalisation rate (only for receiving provinces). We also find that the reaction to horizontal competition is stronger in the provinces that do not receive equalisation transfers.     

Fiscal Externalities and Efficient Transfers in a Federation

This paper investigates properties of the second best allocation in a fiscal federal system in which both federal tax and intergovernmental grants are involved and the taxation is distortionary. Also, optimal federal grants and tax policies in a decentralized fiscal system are examined. Our major findings are: (i) the second best does not require the equalization of marginal cost of public funds across regions in a conventional form; (ii) matching grants based on either the local tax rates or tax revenues should be introduced to internalize the tax externality; and (iii) once lump-sum and matching grants are optimized, federal tax policy becomes redundant so the optimal fiscal gap is indeterminate.     

The mechanics of a graceful exit: Interest on reserves and segmentation in the federal funds market

To combat the financial crisis that intensified in the fall of 2008, the Federal Reserve injected a substantial amount of liquidity into the banking system. The resulting increase in reserve balances exerted downward price pressure in the federal funds market, and the effective federal funds rate began to deviate from the target rate set by the Federal Open Market Committee. In response, the Federal Reserve revised its operational framework for implementing monetary policy and began to pay interest on reserve balances in an attempt to provide a floor for the federal funds rate. Nevertheless, following the policy change, the effective federal funds rate remained below not only the target but also the rate paid on reserve balances. We develop a model to explain this phenomenon and use data from the federal funds market to evaluate it empirically. In turn, we show how successful the Federal Reserve may be in raising the federal funds rate even in an environment with substantial reserve balances.     

我国银行业发展的税收制约分析

无论是从银行业的自身行业特点,还是银行业与其他行业税负、同业税负的比较来看,我国现行的金融税收政策存在税负偏高的问题,这不仅不利于银行消化积聚多年的金融风险和财务包袱,而且直接制约着我国银行业的发展。必须本着“公平、效率、国际性”原则,改革现行金融业税制。     

税收政策对农村经济发展影响研究

现行税收政策对农业的调节功能较弱，税收政策调整滞后于农业经济发展的总体变化。鉴于税收对农村经济增长、农业资本投入、农业技术进步及农业产业结构都存在不同程度的影响，建议在税收政策上给予农业良好的环境空间，以形成有利于刺激农村经济发展的良性机制。     

Credit risk dynamics in response to changes in the federal funds target: The implication for firm short-term debt

The recent credit crisis has raised a number of interesting questions regarding the role of the Federal Reserve Bank and the effectiveness of its expected and unexpected interventions in financial markets, especially during the crisis, given its mandate. This paper reviews and evaluates the impact of expected and unexpected changes in the federal funds rate target on credit risk premia. The paper's main innovation is the use of an ACH-VAR (autoregressive conditional hazard VAR) model to generate the Fed's expected and unexpected monetary policy shocks which are then used to determine the effects of a Federal Reserve policy change on counterparty credit risk and more importantly short-term firm debt financing. The findings answer a longstanding question sought by researchers on the effect of policy makers' announcements on firm debt financing. The results clearly show that the Federal Reserve influences short-term debt financing through the credit channel for both expansionary and contractionary monetary policies. In particular, we find that the growth in counterparty risk appears less responsive to anticipated responses in the Fed funds rate that fail to materialize than to an unanticipated increase in the federal funds rate. Finally, we also document that the results appear to validate the Feds interventions in financial markets to stem counterparty risk and to make liquidity more readily available to firms.     

公平视野下的美国联邦个人所得税研究——兼论对中国个税改革的借鉴

公平视野下的美国联邦个税,在税收理念、纳税人意识、税基结构以及个税的纵横向维度上都贯穿了公平的特性。这种公平的特性对于调节贫富分化以及维持个税制度的良性运行起到了重要作用。滥觞于西方的中国个税,已经走到了改革的十字路口,而成熟的联邦个税可为中国的个税改革提供借鉴的因子。个税改革成功的关键是将公平的因素融化于抽象的税收理念和实体的制度设计中。具体而言,强化纳税人意识、普遍提高征收率、纠正倒金字塔结构、设计综合类税制等都是适当的改革路径。     

Free Cash Flow,Shareholder Value,and the Undistributed Profits Tax of 1936 and 1937

In 1936, the Federal Government unexpectedly imposed a tax on undistributed corporate profits. Despite the direct costs of the tax, its announcement produced a positive revaluation of corporate equity, particularly among lower-payout firms. We interpret this as evidence of a divergence between managerial and shareholder preferences regarding dividend payout policies, consistent with the presence of agency costs. We also find that despite the incentives created by the tax, the actual growth in dividends during 1936 was lower among firms judged more likely to be subject to higher agency costs after controlling for liquidity, debt, and the growth in earnings.     

Insurance and Incentive Effects of Transfers among Regions: Equity and Efficiency

When productivity shocks across regions are less-than-perfectlycorrelated, there are gains from federation, even if the regionsare identical ex ante. For the federation to provide insurancefor these productivity shocks, it must introduce some sort ofequalizing transfer programme among regions. But any suchtransfer programme induces a form of moral hazard as well, ifregions still have some control over their own policies. Oneof the implications of this moral hazard is that the progressivityof the overall (regional together with federal) tax system willbe increased when the federal transfer programme is expanded.