The Value Added Tax on Electronic Commerce in the European Union

This paper concludes that any failure to apply value-added tax (VAT) to electronic commerce crossing borders between EU Member States and other countries should not affect the VAT liability of registered traders, even if the reverse charge rule (taxation in the hands of recipients) is not applied. The only type of e-commerce that is problematic involves sales of digital content to consumers and unregistered traders. However, such sales constitute a minuscule fraction of purchases by households and unregistered traders (given the extremely low level of small-business exemptions). Thus, while many believe that the question of how to tax e-commerce under the VAT is urgent, how it is resolved may not be very important.     

基于一体化的视角看欧盟税收体系的结构问题与改革取向

欧盟的一体化进程在向各国提出新的税收课题的同时,也使得各国原有的税收问题进一步凸显.在税收结构中,劳动税有一个高税收楔子,对消费税的依赖度很高,而公司所得税和不动产税在总税收中却占一个很小的份额.这种税收结构带来了较低的劳动积极性、较大的税收非中性、较弱的税收再分配能力等问题,并有悖于市场统一化和货币单一化的新形势.这一切决定了欧盟税收体系的改革取向.     

After the death of inflation: will fiscal drag survive?

Declining inflation rates might have negative consequences for tax revenues. Phenomena such as the inflationary bracket creep in a progressive income tax system do not work any longer. With this background, the paper analyses the extent of fiscal drag for OECD countries since 1965. Some consideration of the role of money illusion and indexation in this context lays the theoretical base. A framework is presented that allows for the classification of fiscal structures with regard to the type of fiscal drag. The subsequent econometric panel analysis is performed for total and disaggregated government revenues. The results back theoretical considerations of inflation's impact on different kinds of taxes, which tends to be positive for individual income taxes and social security contributions and is negative for corporate income taxation. The paper concludes that both declining inflation and changing tax structures limit the potential for future fiscal drag.     

Optimal money and debt management: Liquidity provision vs tax smoothing

Conventional wisdom on public debt management says that liquidity demand should be satiated and that tax rates should be smoothed. Conflicts between the two can arise when government bonds provide liquidity. Smoothing taxes causes greater variability in fiscal balances, and therefore in the supply of government liabilities. When prices are flexible, and can jump to absorb fiscal shocks, the tradeoff between liquidity provision and tax smoothing is eased; when they conflict, optimal policy subordinates tax smoothing to satiating liquidity demand. When price fluctuations impose real costs, conflicts necessarily arise and optimal policy gives primacy to neither goal.     

税法总则立法的基本问题探讨——兼论《税法典》编纂

当前我国税收立法正在加快推进,单行税法有望近几年全面完成立法。制定单行税法只是落实税收法定原则的第一步,为了发挥税收在国家治理中的基础性、支柱性和保障性作用,呼应《民法典》的编纂实施,提高税收法律的体系化和科学化,实现税收治理法治化,有必要尽快制定对单行税法起统领作用的税法总则,并在此基础上编纂《税法典》。税法总则是税收领域的基本法、总则法、平衡法和总则编,应当处理好与《宪法》、财政法、行政法总则、《民法典》和《税收征管法》等法律的协调关系,以法律关系为主线确定立法架构,着力破解税收领域的基础性法律难题。要按照"两步走"的思路,汇聚万众智慧,吸纳中外法典精华,努力编纂一部展现我国智慧、体现时代特征、在国际上具有示范效应的《税法典》。     

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.     

车辆购置税税收制度对环境治理的影响--以京津冀地区的污染防治为例

改革开放以来,我国在推动经济高速发展的同时,疏忽了环境污染的问题,京津冀地区的污染问题尤其严重。京津冀区域环境污染已经成为制约京津冀地区经济可持续发展的最大问题。在解决环境污染的过程中,不同的治理手段,会对财税政策的改革产生不同程度的影响,促使财税政策的改革进一步调整和完善。本文基于库兹涅茨曲线模型,利用京津冀三地2008-2017年的面板数据,检验车辆购置税征收情况与不同污染排放的关系。实证研究结果表明:我国现阶段车辆购置税征收与废气污染排放量呈显著的负相关关系、与噪声污染的产生呈较为显著的负相关关系,与工业废水排放则呈不显著的负相关关系。     

Optimal Fiscal Policy with Consumption Taxation

We characterize optimal fiscal policies in a general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition and endogenous public spending. The government can tax consumption, as alternative to labor income taxes. Consumption taxation acts as indirect taxation of profits (intratemporal gains of taxing consumption) and enables the policymaker to manage the burden of public debt more efficiently (intertemporal gains of taxing consumption). We show analytically that these two gains imply that the optimal share of government spending is higher under consumption taxation than with labor income taxation. Then, we quantify numerically each of these gains by calibrating the model on the U.S. economy.     

Destination taxation and evasion: Evidence from U.S. inter-state commodity flows

Tax evasion has been an important issue in the accounting literature for several decades, but the focus has been on corporate income taxes. We develop a new way to examine tax evasion that focuses on corporate transactions, rather than corporate profits. Specifically, we examine how commodity flows respond to destination sales taxes, allowing for tax evasion as a function of distance between trade partners. After accounting for transportation costs, we find that the effect of taxes decreases as distance increases. This is consistent with the notion that longer distances between trade partners hinder government oversight and increase the likelihood of successful tax evasion. Our results are robust with respect to outliers, strategic neighbor effects, information sharing agreements and other re-specifications. These results are important to policymakers because they evidence the difficulty of enforcing destination taxation in open economies such as U.S. states and the European Union.     

反延期纳税机制面临的挑战与对策

反延期纳税机制是资本输出国保护税基、维护资本输出中性原则的重要手段。在世界上率先进行相关立法的美国,其反延期纳税机制现如今也受到了来自纳税人、服务业发展、电子商务兴起等多方面的挑战。对此,本文介绍了三种改革反延期纳税机制的可能方案。     

完善我国个人所得税减免问题的思考

一直以来,个人所得税是地税机关征管工作的一个重点难点,也是全社会普遍关注的问题,而在个人所得税的减免税工作中尤为突出,这不仅体现在减免税政策上,也体现在减免税管理上.本文从分析我国现行个人所得税减免税在政策和管理上存在的问题出发,提出了完善个人所得税减免税的思考.     

A Note on Intertemporal Fiscal Competition and Redistribution

This paper studies fiscal competition among jurisdictions in a dynamic framework, where the degree of mobility of private capital across jurisdictions boundaries is perfect. The optimal tax on mobile capital is a source tax that taxes away factor rents. Further we show that taxation of mobile capital can redistribute income in favor of the immobile factor labor. This is because the factor rents generated by public inputs and appropriated by mobile capital exceed the efficient level of public expenditure for investments. JEL Code: H21, H23, H42, H71     

Analyzing the standard deduction as a presumptive tax

Presumptive taxes can be found in the tax system of most developing countries and make sense when the desired tax base is difficult to measure, verify, and monitor. As a substitute for the desired tax base, the presumed tax base is derived from items that can be more readily monitored. Presumed taxes can also be found in developed countries, and examples include fixed depreciation schedules in place of asset-specific measures of decline in asset value, floors on deductible expenses, and the standard deduction. The authors analyze presumptive income taxation with an ultimate goal to initiate an approach to optimal presumptive taxation. This paper begins that task by analyzing the standard deduction in the individual income tax system in the United States.     

对我国有关所得来源地判定标准修改的建议

所得来源地判定是确定非居民企业或个人的所得在我国是否应负有纳税义务的基本标准。本文分析了当前我国税法有关所得来源地判定标准存在的一些问题,并根据《OECD税收协定范本》、《联合国税收协定范本》以及我国与其他国家签订的税收协定,提出了修改我国税法中有关所得来源地判定标准条款的建议。     

从扩张走向限缩:税收优先权在民事执行程序中的实现路径

不论是“先税后证”还是包税条款,从结果上都呈现出税收优先权在民事执行程序中扩张的趋势。税收优先权扩张所提升的执法效率不足以弥补民事交易秩序的减损。《税收征管法》和《民事诉讼法》都没有明确规定税收优先权在民事执行中的实现方式,导致司法实践中频频出现截然不同的裁定,严重影响了执行的效率和交易的可预期性。税收债权应当遵循债权受偿的逻辑,除满足税收债权公示的形式要件外,不享有优先权。民事执行程序中的新生税款不宜一概作为执行费用优先支付。从程序要件和实体要件上对税收优先权进行限缩,有助于平衡税收债权人和民事债权人之间的利益,保障交易安全,推动税收治理能力的提升。     

税费替代:增值税减税、非税收入征管与企业投资

通过减税促进企业投资和提振宏观经济是近年来中国税收制度改革的重要目标,但减税政策的实际效果却存在争议。本文利用2009年增值税转型改革,研究了减税对地方政府税费收入和企业非税负担的影响,从税费替代的角度揭示非税负担变动如何影响企业固定资产投资。研究发现:(1)增值税转型在减税的同时提高了地方政府非税收入并加重了企业非税负担,地方财政收入受增值税转型冲击越大,企业非税负担上升越明显。(2)上述应主要体现在小型、微型和民营企业上,大中型、非民营企业的非税负担未发生明显变化。(3)非税负担上升会显著抑制小型、微型和民营企业的固定资产投资,促使小型微型和民营企业通过持有更多现金和减少流动性负债来应对税费负担不确定性。本文有助于理解减税政策对小型微型和民营企业非税负担的溢出效应及其影响,为通过减税降费促进投资和提振经济提供经验支撑。     

关于构建合理的地方税体系的探讨

加快改革财税体制,是新一轮经济体制改革的突破口,地方税体系构建是其中重要一环。当前我国地方税体系存在税权划分不科学、主体税种缺失、法治建设滞后等问题,本文结合国际相关经验,提出了构建和完善地方税体系的建议。     

美国的燃油税政策及借鉴

本文介绍了美国燃油税的产生、现状和发展趋势。借鉴其政策的经验和教训,对中国制定和实施燃油税政策提出了一些建议:尽早开征、设置合理的税率、税收款专款专用、加强公交基础设施建设以及完善公路税费政策等。     

间接税亲贫性与代内归宿——穷人从减税中获益了吗?

税收工具作为财政扶贫机制中的重要一环,在推进精准扶贫、精准脱贫上发挥着重要作用。本文基于CFPS2012入户调查数据和中国2012年投入产出表,运用微观模拟方法测算出家庭的间接税负,在此基础上,借鉴衡量经济“涓滴效应”的亲贫增长指数,构建了识别和测度税制“亲贫性”的数量方法,评估间接税的减税政策能否自发惠及穷人,进一步测算家庭不同年龄层的间接税负代内归宿。结果显示:间接税整体上不具有“亲贫性”,其中增值税的“亲富性”最强,减税能让穷人比富人获益更多;儿童、成人以及老人均是间接税的负税人,贫困家庭抚养小孩而承担的间接税负比重高于非贫困家庭,赡养老人而负担的间接税负比重低于非贫困家庭。据此本文认为,继续推动大规模的间接税减税政策、采取差别化的增值税和消费税减免策略、逐步形成以直接税为主的税制结构,是改变间接税"亲富性"和强化税收扶贫职能的有效措施。