| Tax structure, the combinations and relative status of different kinds of taxes, refers to a basic issue in the tax theory and practice, and its changes can exert great influences on many respects, including economic development, social welfare and so on. Domestic theory circle recommends that China’s current tax structure is out of balance, the proportion of indirect tax is far more than that of direct tax, and there exists greater differences between turnover tax and income tax, which forms a stark contrast with the fact that the direct tax takes a dominant position in mature market of economic countries. In this tax structure, the tax burden of goods and services cannot be lessened efficiently, and the function that income tax prompts social justice cannot be reflected, either. Therefore, it is recommended that China should increase the proportion of direct tax, optimize the tax structure and fully exert the modification of the tax on economy, so as to lessen tax load, promote social justice and ensure the economy booms.On June 30th,2014, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPC reviewed and passed The Overall Programme of Financial and Taxation System Reform, whose core as "to optimize the tax structure", one of the three tasks of the reform is highly anticipated. In the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, it was also clearly presented in the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform that, we should deepen the reform of financial and taxation system, improve taxation system and "increase the proportion of direct tax step by step". It made clear one crucial direction in the future taxation reform and set higher and more meticulous requirements for the study in improving the proportion of direct tax, perfect the approach, condition and time of the "Dual-subject" taxation structure.However, the limitation of the tax structure theories and the complexity of practice leave great challenges to the study of this issue. There are still a series of pending questions:First, is increasing the proportion of direct tax really a wholesome measure to optimize our tax structure? Second, which factor can influence and restrict the changes of the proportion of direct tax? And to what extent, government’s subjective initiative can play its role, and what kind of role can it play? Third, will the proportion changes of direct tax do harm to economic efficiency, and can it earnestly promote the justice of residents’ income distribution? Fourth, what method can be adopted to increase the proportion of direct tax? And what kind of policy available can we utilize? The issue of tax structure is both an economic issue and a social and political one concerning about people’s livelihood. At the same time, countries vary from others dramatically. Therefore, all of these issues haven’t been concluded to clear consensuses yet.On this occasion, the analysis of transition experience of different countries presents extremely important. In fact, the absolutely best tax structure does not exist. Great differences can be found in the conditions of all the countries, different developing phases for the same country, various objective environments for tax and the different choices of policy aims and values of the governments. As a result, there is no such a choice of tax structure that can be available for all the countries or will be suitable for one country forever. We can summarize the commonality and individuality of phases, conditions and influential factors during the transition of tax reform by analyzing the changing history of tax structure in different countries. The conclusions from history tracking, empirical study and case study can be the reference in order to serving as the important experience and implication to optimize our tax structure.For a long time, domestic study pays more attention to the tax structure of developed countries, less to the new economies, and seldom to the countries with similar developing phases and comparable basic national conditions in an intensive way. With respect to these factors, the thesis chooses the tax structure of the BRICS as the study object. According to the objective conditions of the transition of tax structure, BRICS stay in the same phase of development, and economic factors restrict the tax base and collection level to the same extent. In view of the subjective choice and value orientation from government to tax structure, each country tries hard to maintain a rapid economic growth to expand the economic scale, and strives to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor caused by imbalanced development. As a result, like the condition in our country, tax should serve as the regulator to balance efficiency and justice. It can be implied from all these factors that other BRICS countries and China have commonalities in tax environment and appeal. The thesis tries to make a history outline and study the empirical factors for the transition of BRICS’national tax structure, influential factors and the effect of efficiency and justice, summarizes the commonality, analyzes the individuality, exploring available approaches to increase the proportion of direct tax and optimize the tax structure, so as to provide relevant suggestion and consultation for the relevant policies to optimize national tax structure in our country.The thesis consists of 7 chapters. Chapter 1 to 3 illustrate theories, chapter 4 to 6 is about experience and empirical study and chapter 7 is the conclusion and suggestions.Chapter 1:Introduction, to discuss study background and raise study purpose. Chapter 2:Domestic and oversea literature review, to sort out and comment the previous study achievements related to the thesis. Chapter 3:Theory analysis, it consists of 3 sections: section 1 is the study framework of the transition of tax structure, section 2 is the mechanism that factors influence the transition of tax structure, and section 3 is about the mechanism how the transition of tax structure works for efficiency and justice. Chapter 4:To sort out and analyze the history and cause of tax structure transition for BRICS diachronically and synchronically. Chapter 5:To study the main factors that influences the transition of tax structure with measurement analysis. Chapter 6:To study the efficiency and justice effect of national tax structure of BRICS by means of measurement and numerical simulation. Since China is ranked in BRICS, Chapter 4 and 6 consist of the study of China’s reality. Chapter 7:Major conclusion of the thesis and policy suggestions for optimizing China’s tax structure. The thesis has new attempt in the following 5 aspects:First, set up analysis framework on comparative study of tax structure change, put forward the idea that study on the tax structure changes should be carried out from two aspects:structure of tax combination and structure of tax revenue; meanwhile, divide tax structure change into "violent" and "gradual" based on characteristics of the structure of tax combination, and into "centralized", "smooth", and "divergent" based on characteristics of the structure of tax revenue.Second, systematically review the historical process of tax structure changes in BRICS and compare the course, path and cause of tax structure changes in BRICS, with the following findings:1), tax structure change in Russia is represented as "violent divergent", while tax structure changes in other four countries are represented as "gradual-centralized".2), even without considering social security tax, China has already formed a "dual-subject" (higher proportion of indirect tax) tax structure of direct and indirect tax. Among other BRICS, Russia is like China, but the South Africa has formed and maintained a "dual-subject" structure with higher proportion of direct tax for a long time; while tax structures of India and Brazil are dominated by indirect tax. And 3), the South Africa has tax structure in which personal income tax is taken as the main income source; while Russia has tax structure of income tax, import and export tax, domestic commodity tax, and property tax sharing the same proportion. Both countries have their own distinctive development characteristics and marks of the times.Third, perform panel data analysis on factors affecting tax structure change of BRICS and find that many subjective and objective factors will has effect on the tax structure change of BRICS, such as economic development level, openness, urbanization rate, tax reform, tax burden level, and inflation rate. Among them, the factors affecting tax system structure and tax class structure are not the same and the influence also shows difference.Forth, build vector auto-regression system for economic effect of BRICS’s tax structures and carry out co-integration analysis, with the following result that there is a long-term equilibrium relationship between tax structure change of each BRICS and economic growth rate, but the direction is either positive or negative; in the short term, the impact of innovation of tax structure will affect economic growth rate, that in turn will facilitate greater impact; overall, the two have apparent interactive relationship.And fifth, make computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to the efficiency of increasing direct tax proportion and fair effect in China and find that in the case of unchanged macro tax burden, the increase of direct tax proportion via raising the proportion of personal income tax revenue and reducing the proportion of business tax and added-value tax is able to significantly improve the income redistribution effect of China’s tax structure, with some relatively weak negative effect on the total output and total employment. |
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