Political Economy Of Chinese Farmers' Tax Burden

By analyzing sample data (Database of Fixed Point Survey, Ministry of Agriculture) of several thousands farmer distributed in the ten different provinces from 1986 to 1999, this paper indicates the peasant tax and fee burdens did not increase very fast in the 1990s, wherever on the absolute quantity or on the comparative rates, but the peasant tax and fee burdens became an much more acute problem in the same period. I hold that a partial explanation lies in the increase of peasant income disparity in the 1990s and the uneven distribution of tax and fee burdens among different income groups. The basic way to resolve the acute problem is to maximize market's function in the private sector and maximize the function of public choice mechanism.Relevant suggestions for central government are as follow.Firstly, the actual administration institution of registered permanent residence should be abolished. Secondly, the peasant should be entitled the full property right of land. Thirdly, the government grain procurement should be cancelled. Fourthly, all kinds of enforceable fee on peasant should be cancelled and the fiscal shortage of villages and towns produced simultaneously could be resolved by the follow two ways. One is to classify the responsibility on the expenditure of public goods among local government. The other is to that the higher government esp. provincial government should be charged with more responsibility toincrease their transference to villages and towns finance. Fifthly, the peasant constitutional right that peasant can establish their own association should be protected. The mechanism of public choice could be introduced into the decision-making on the demand-supple of public goods of countryside community after Farmer's Association appears. The goal of the long run is to realize the federalism under constitutionality.