| Tax collection as a kind of administrative enforcement action has some differences with other administrative actions. As it relates to all aspects of national economic life and deeps into the private property of the taxpayer, the enforcement of tax collection is difficult and principled. In the tax collection procedure, there are some issues, such as the asymmetric information between tax authority and taxpayer, a lot of difficulties to collect tax information, the low efficiency of tax administration and tax inspection, the violated rights of taxpayer in tax administration process by the tax authority and so on. To ensure the interests of national revenue and protect taxpayers’ rights, the law is necessary to specify the taxpayer cooperation obligation, assisting the tax authority to identify the facts of taxation. Taxpayer cooperation obligation includes tax registration obligation, setting and saving account books obligation, tax reporting obligation, honesty obligation, explaining and providing account books and other materials obligation and tolerance obligation in the tax inspection process.Throughout Chinese tax law system, whether Tax Administration Law, or other single-line tax laws as Personal Income Tax Law, there are some provisions of taxpayer cooperation obligation. However, in practice, the tax authority tends to shift the responsibility of identifying the facts of taxation upon the taxpayer and impose the taxpayer heavy duty, which not only damage the taxpayers’ rights, but also increase contradictions between tax authority and taxpayer, reducing taxpayer’s enthusiasm to fulfill the cooperation obligations. The reasons are mainly due to lacking a clear understanding about the taxpayer cooperation obligation’s properties, as well as the imperfect existing taxpayer cooperation obligations rules. Taxpayer cooperation obligation is collateral obligation to pay tax, which is a supplementary means to identify the taxation fact and not a substitute of tax authority’s responsibility. In order to avoid the tax authority to shift its responsibility upon taxpayer and increase the taxpayer obligation, the relevant law should make clear the scope of cooperation obligation of taxpayer and improve relevant punishment rules and transparency of presumptive taxation procedure. Moreover, taxpayer cooperation obligation is the main way to achieve the taxpayers’ right of participating in the tax collection procedure. To justify the tax collection program, taxpayer procedural rights should be guaranteed, such as the right to know, the right to be heard and so on. On the basis, incentive mechanism should be built to improve taxpayers’ enthusiasm to fulfill the cooperation obligations. Improving taxpayer cooperation obligation rules will effectively protect taxpayers’ rights and promote tax collection procedure smoothly. This paper is divided into six parts.The first part introduces the concept, subject, content and liability form of taxpayer cooperation obligation, to make the necessary groundwork for the subsequent part.The second part, combined with legislative and practical situation, analyzes some issues, such as the imperfect cooperation obligation rules, the opaque presumptive taxation procedures, the weakened procedural rights of taxpayer and so on.To justify taxpayer cooperation obligation, the third part analyzes the theoretical basis of taxpayer cooperation obligation with constitution and tax law theories.The fourth part introduces research status of taxpayer cooperation obligation in Japan, Taiwan of China, and Mainland China. On the basis, this part discriminates its legal properties from the purpose, content, liability form of duty and other aspects of the system.The fifth part introduces and compares outside rules of taxpayer cooperation obligation. German tax law specifically defines the cooperation obligations of parties. Taxpayer cooperation obligation of Japan is mainly reflected in the tax reporting. Its "Blue Tax Reporting" system is unique. Although theoretical study of taxpayer cooperation obligation in the United States is not too much, the rule of tax reporting is complete. The system of taxpayer cooperation obligation is more comprehensive in Taiwan. The rules of these countries and regions above have reference to improve taxpayer cooperation obligation of Mainland China.The sixth part, in view of the existing problems, improves taxpayer cooperation obligation rules of Tax Administration Law in five aspects. The five aspects are as follows:(a) Establish the legal status of taxpayer cooperation obligation;(b) Clear the range of indirect taxpayer cooperation obligation;(c)Improve the liability rules of breach of the taxpayer cooperation obligation;(d) Protect taxpayer’s procedural rights;(e)Establish incentive mechanism of taxpayer cooperation obligation. |
