H.H.Kung And The Tax System During The Anti-Japanese War

During the Anti-Japanese War, H.H.Kung who was in charge of the finance and tax of the government took various measures in order to deal with the increasing expenditure of the government and army. The reform of tax system was an important measure. In this paper, we try to discuss Kung's notions of finance and tax, the effects of the war on his financial measures and the functions of these measures in the war, the construction of China's tax system and the development of society and economy. The tax reform could be divided into two phases, whose goals and contents were greatly different from each other. The first phase (before 1941) paid attention to the change of tax section and the improvement of its administration; however, the second phase (after 1941) emphasized to strengthen revenue from tax. These differences resulted from the rapidly increasing expenditure during the wartime. We think that in the first phase, Kung's measures helped to construct a sound tax system in China, but neglected the financial function of the tax; in the second phase, Kung's measures increased the financial revenue, but were accompanied by many bad effects: they obstructed the economic development, aggravated people's burden and worsened the social antinomy. In addition, many measures taken in the second phase were temporary ones. Although there were many bad effects of Kung's financial measures in the second phase, we have to admit their positive effects on the war and the construction of China's tax system.