Research On Tax Policy Of China's Response To Natural Disasters

From the date of a human's birth, we are confronted with all kinds of natural disasters like nightmare, which threatening the lives and property of the crown of creation. In recent years, with the economic and social development, the contradictions between human society and the natural environment is more and more prominent. Serious environmental damage, global warming, a variety of major natural disasters is more frequent. It is foreseeable that natural disasters will become a major bottleneck in the future for a long period of time. Since 2008, the spate of snowstorms, earthquakes, drought, heavy rain, landslide, debris flow and other catastrophic natural disasters in our country caused immeasurable damage to property and casualty, has seriously affected China's rapid economic development. Facing the frequent disasters, mankind can no longer ignore the importance of disaster prevention and mitigation, but also realize that the Government is playing an increasingly important role in this process. Undoubtedly, tax policy is an important means to the Government to perform functions and regulate the economy.Facing the unexpected natural disasters, the State, Council and local government departments have taken a variety of means and relevant policies, but also actively carried out relief and reconstruction work to reduce the burden of disaster areas to promote economic recovery in affected areas. The tax department is also highly. concerning about the great importance to disaster reduction and relief work. Facing the serious situation, they have taken research in a timely manner to carried out effective measures. But, there are many departments to improve for the tax policies of preventing natural disasters. In view of this, through empirical analysis, normative analysis, qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis and other research methods, this paper is researching on our current tax law regarding the response to natural disasters to try to reveal the shortcomings and problems which own to the tax policy and the process of implementing and propose policy recommendations to providing slight reference to better responding to natural disasters. This paper is concentrated on how to respond to natural disasters from the perspective of tax policy. Firstly, the condition and hazards are described and the term of disaster is defined from different perspectives with defining the scope of this study followed by a brief introduction to China on the types and characteristics of natural disasters. Through the list of natural disasters occurred in recent years, it also describes the severity of the losses caused by natural disasters. Secondly, from the supply of public goods, market failure, externalities, the functions of tax, it clarifies the necessity for government to step in the process of preventing natural disasters and the security of tax for government to performance functions. From the urgency of working to tax policy, improving the quality of disaster prevention and mitigation, establishing early warning mechanism of tax and the promotion the modernization of disaster prevention and mitigation, it describes that tax policy is playing an important role in response to natural disasters. Thirdly, it is major to introduce to China's tax policy to respond to natural disasters and their limitations. Through combing the tax policy and doing a brief evaluation, It is concluded that there are some limitations in the current tax policy such as neglecting forward-looking, single regulation means, incomplete radiation taxes, inadequate support for donation, and so on. Finally, it is major to propose a sound tax policy in China to respond to natural disasters. At the beginning of this part, it is cited Japan and USA's response to natural disasters in the specific measures and drawn on the experience of enlightenment. Following, it is focusing on how to improve our response to natural disasters in the tax policy and putting forward a five-point proposal, including the development of tax supporting system, expanding the disaster involving taxes, introducing Disaster Tax, using tax policy to mobilize social donation and the role of social capital. Besides, this paper is underlined that it is important to improve other relevant supporting measures, including tax services and tax administration.