The Fair Effect?Economic Efficiency And System Design Of Estate Tax In China

With the gap of income and wealth expanding in our country,the estate tax which is the important tool of adjusting income distribution and popular choice of other countries received much concern. The state department approved in 2013 several opinions about deepening the reform of income distribution system putted forward "to speed up completing the mechanism of redistribution adjustment timely levy estate tax ". However, for the problem of whether and when to levy estate tax,there were different opinions, supporters emphasized the significance of the tax for social justice;while the others supposed that the tax would bring economical efficiency loss and restrain progress.Under this background, through normative analysis of the effect of collection, figure out how the tax affect income distribution and economic operation is very necessary.Firstly, this paper carried out summarizing the related literature about the tax fairness and efficiency analysis, and illustrated the mechanism of estate tax influencing social justice and economical operation.Based on these,we built a overlapping model which contains the estate tax and intergenerational property transfer, and carried out the general equilibrium analysis of the effect of the tax. Then using the data of China's economic realities,we conducted calibrating simulation to reflect its economic effects more clearly. Through the analysis, we found that by influencing the residents' consumption and saving decisions,the tax reduced the volume of intergenerational wealth transfer and capital stock, and further improved the return on capital, reduced the return on labor, which would affect residents' income for a long time.At present,the estate tax would help narrowing the income gap, but was likely to bring certain social welfare loss.The influence on the gap of income depended on bequest motives,under the circumstances of purposeful motive,estate tax would widen the gap.On the one hand,this require to carry out the investigation of residents' motivation for leaving property and inheritance features analysis,which would provide a reference for the formulation of the estate tax policy in the future.On the other hand,this demanded to using the tax revenue to provide more public goods and transferred payment to poor groups, to make up the loss of social welfare.Based on previous analysis,this paper argued that China's basic orientation of the estate tax policies should be to narrow the gap in income and wealth, and promote social justice.At the same time,the policies should be based on current state of economical development,taking into consideration every aspects of estate tax influencing economical operation and social welfare,reduced the loss of economic efficiency. Therefore, the basic principle of the design of estate tax system in China should be "fair" and "efficient".To exert the fair effect of the tax,the scientific formulation of tax policy is indispensable.And this depended on realization of the background of implementation in our country,especially the international tendency of the development of the estate tax, and the analysis of the realistic condition of our country.But our country had not yet investigated the status of people inheritance,so were lack of relevant data, and could not directly carry out empirical analysis. The author thought that the wealth distribution and inheritance distribution have considerable relevance, based on this thought and combined with the relevant academic research, this paper expounded the characteristics of residents inheritance in our country based on micro data.And then combining with the international tendency of the development of the estate tax, from external environment and internal conditions, the reality of the implementation of inheritance tax system in China is analyzed.Finally,based on the principles of estate tax system designing and the background of the implementation of estate tax system in China, from tax system components determinating,tax rates setting, exemption setting,tax model selecting and construction of supporting measures five aspects put forward relevant recommendations for the design of inheritance taxation elements in our country.