Discuss the background of the state treasury centralized payment and collection system, the theory and practice to explain the advantages and shortcomings of the current treasury centralized payment a

Discuss the background of the state treasury centralized payment and collection system, the theory and practice to explain the advantages and shortcomings of the current treasury centralized payment and collection system, put forward the feasibility of the proposed system. Background:

For a long time, our country, whether in financial theory or in practice, has been practicing the principle of financial management "to determine expenditure by revenue", and there exists the idea of "focusing on revenue, light on expenditure" of financial expenditure. The focus of the reform is often concentrated on the revenue side, while the expenditure side has not yet been thoroughly reformed.69 In 2001, the Minister of Finance, Mr. Xiang Huaicheng, in his report to the National People's Congress, made the implementation of the centralized treasury payment system as the focus of the reform of financial expenditure during the Tenth Five-Year Plan period. In the new situation, the establishment of a sound public **** financial institutional framework, strengthen financial expenditure management has become inevitable, the implementation of the centralized treasury payment system should be put on the agenda.

1. China's traditional decentralized treasury revenue and expenditure system problems

In the traditional decentralized treasury revenue and expenditure system, the financial funds are divided into budgetary funds and extrabudgetary funds, many administrative institutions have set up a "small treasury", off-book accounts, such as the retention of financial funds. Budget revenue is paid directly into the treasury through the collection agency, and when budget funds are spent, the draft budget is first prepared by the expenditure unit (budget unit), and the budget is reviewed and summarized by the finance department and approved by the people's congress at the same level to become the official budget, and the finance department allocates the budget funds directly from the treasury through the People's Bank of China according to the plan and the budget to the account opened by the expenditure unit (budget unit) in a commercial bank, and the expenditure unit (budget unit) is then paid according to the relevant regulations. (budget unit) and then according to the relevant provisions and budgetary requirements, to pay for the purchase of goods and labor of all kinds of money on their own, and at the end of the year to prepare a statement of financial accounts, to be submitted to the same level of finance, Figure 1 for the payment of budgetary funds to spend the procedural chart. Extrabudgetary funds are currently not included in the budget management, its income is not directly into the national treasury, but by the financial sector to implement the management of two lines of income and two lines of expenditure, the income is all paid into the financial account, the expenditure by the same level of the financial sector according to the extrabudgetary expenditure plan and the unit's financial income and expenditure plan to coordinate the arrangement of the approval of the financial account from the allocation of the unit, the units will be returned extrabudgetary funds on their own to pay the suppliers of goods and labor. In fact, not all units of extrabudgetary funds can be made to the two lines of income and expenditure, China is still some units to open their own extrabudgetary funds account, to sit on the seat of the expenditure.

In this decentralized treasury revenue and expenditure system, China's treasury funds management there are several aspects of the following problems.

(1) the financial sector and administrative institutions to open multiple accounts, transfer and decentralization of financial funds.

On the one hand, due to China's treasury management system in the treasury deposits do not accrue interest; on the other hand, due to the commercial banks in order to pull more deposits, the deposit task layer by layer decentralized, implemented to the individual, the financial funds have become the object of competition. Many financial departments in this case, in order to obtain interest multi-accounts, and the budget funds into extra-budgetary funds, to avoid budget management. In accordance with the provisions of the current system, administrative institutions to implement the "two lines of income and expenditure" management method, can only open the income and expenditure of each account, but in fact, many units also exist in the phenomenon of multiple accounts, while administrative institutions not only the existence of the phenomenon of transferring funds into extrabudgetary funds, there is also the establishment of a small treasury and off-budget account, scattered There is also the phenomenon of setting up small treasuries and off-book accounts, thus dispersing the country's financial resources. Due to the existence of the phenomenon of multiple accounts in all financial and budgetary units, the state is unable to understand the income and expenditure status of all financial funds, resulting in confusion and inefficiency in the management of funds.

(2) The treasury funds excluding extra-budgetary funds are not conducive to the implementation of fiscal macro-control policies.

China currently distinguishes fiscal funds into budgetary funds and extrabudgetary funds. Budgetary funds is the national centralized funds, is paid into the state treasury, and through all levels of finance layer by layer summarized into the national budget funds, is the basis of China's current implementation of macro-control policies. Extrabudgetary funds, on the other hand, are at the disposal of budgetary units and are decentralized; although extrabudgetary funds are now managed along two lines, with revenues paid into a special account and expenditures returned to the treasury, they are not yet centralized nationally, and are not paid into the State Treasury. When the state formulates macro-financial policy, it should base on all the financial funds, but now, because only the budgeted funds are included in the budget, the state can not fully grasp the extra-budgetary funds and the funds outside the system (the funds outside the system generally exist in "small treasury" and outside the account), so the macro-financial policy is often formulated on the basis of the budgeted funds, but in reality, a large amount of extra-budgetary funds are scattered. But in reality, the existence of a large number of extra-budgetary funds and funds outside the system will affect the operation of macro-financial policy. For example, when there is a large deficit in the budgetary funds, and extra-budgetary funds and funds outside the system and there is a large balance, originally the financial funds can balance itself, but because the state only control the budgetary funds, in order to balance the budgetary funds will be issued additional national debt, thus to a certain extent, affecting the implementation of fiscal policy and monetary policy.

(3) The decentralized revenue and expenditure system implements the system of "allocating funds to determine expenditure", resulting in the sedimentation of funds and distortion of information on fiscal expenditure.

Under this kind of revenue and expenditure system, when the financial department at the same level allocates financial funds to the budgetary unit, it is treated as financial expenditure in the general budgetary accounting, while the real expenditure of financial funds is not at this stage, but when the budgetary unit pays the bill to the suppliers of goods and services. The inconsistency between the stage of book expenditure and the stage of actual expenditure will cause information distortion in two aspects of financial expenditure: on the one hand, the amount of financial expenditure is distorted. The amount allocated by the financial sector is not equal to the amount paid by the budget unit to the supplier of goods and services, often the former is greater than the latter (because if it is the latter is greater than the former, the budget unit will continue to ask for money from the treasury), thus resulting in funds deposited in the budget unit. So there will be a phenomenon that the fiscal budget funds book deficit but actually have a balance, thus affecting the formulation of fiscal policy. On the other hand, it is the distortion of the use of financial expenditure. "Under the decentralized revenue and expenditure system, the financial sector allocates funds to budgetary units according to the purposes specified in the budget and plan as the corresponding expenditures, and no longer manages and supervises the budgetary funds; the right of use belongs to the budgetary units, and the budgetary units may change the purposes of the budgetary funds after obtaining the budgetary funds and divert the funds for other purposes. This will result in inconsistency between the book use of budget expenditures and their actual use. This also reflects the use of treasury funds (our treasury funds is the budget funds) is not the treasury department and the financial sector of the strong supervision.

(4) the treasury funds settlement links, affecting the treasury funds in a timely manner into the treasury, reducing the efficiency of the use of treasury funds.

Under the decentralized revenue and expenditure system, from the revenue link, on the one hand, some collection agencies in order to complete the task of collection, the establishment of a transitional account, as a tax reservoir, artificially increasing the settlement of fiscal revenue link; on the other hand, due to the treasury through the collection office located in the commercial banks, and the commercial banks and the People's Bank of China, the agent of the treasury must be through the crosstown bill system in order to be able to settle the bill. Both of these aspects will affect the timely deposit of fiscal revenues into the Treasury. From the expenditure link, the decentralized revenue and expenditure system does not establish a centralized government expenditure system like the centralized revenue and expenditure system, in which the treasury funds are uniformly paid directly by the treasury to the providers of goods and services, but the treasury funds are first transferred by the financial department to the accounts of the expenditure units, and then the expenditure units arrange for the expenditures; at the same time, many expenditure units have set up a lot of accounts in the commercial banks, which makes the movement of the funds of the expenditure units from one bank account to another bank account, so that the treasury funds are stranded in the bank settlement link, greatly reducing the efficiency of the use of treasury funds. Finally, at present, due to the finance, collection agencies, treasury, commercial banks have not been fully networked, the banks have not been able to fully establish an efficient electronic settlement system between the banks, which also affects the treasury funds into the treasury and the efficiency of the use of the treasury funds.

(5) Under the decentralized system of revenue and expenditure, the state's supervision of treasury funds is ineffective.

Under China's traditional decentralized revenue and expenditure system, the treasury management department and the treasury cashier department is not divided; the treasury personnel's supervision of the awareness is not strong; the financial sector and administrative institutions to open multiple accounts; the financial "to allocate to determine the expenditure", after the allocation of funds and no longer supervise the use of the treasury funds; the lack of professional internal and external supervision of personnel and institutions and other reasons, resulting in China has always been the use of treasury funds. Institutions and so on, caused by our country has been on the treasury funds revenue and expenditure supervision is not effective, often appear the National People's Congress has just passed the budget, at the same time to adjust the budget comes, can not use the budget constraints on the treasury funds expenditure phenomenon.

2. The benefits of China's centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system

In China has been the implementation of the treasury decentralized revenue and expenditure system, this system makes China's treasury funds are inefficiently utilized, the supervision is not sound, and the bureaucratic corruption phenomenon is serious. With the establishment and reform of China's public **** finance, the Treasury decentralized revenue and expenditure system to the point of having to change. Treasury centralized revenue and expenditure system is commonly used in foreign countries treasury management system, in our country to implement the treasury centralized revenue and expenditure system exists in the following four aspects of the benefits:

(1) is conducive to improve the efficiency of the use of treasury funds.

First of all, the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system has changed the principle of "to allocate for expenditure", but the actual payment of treasury funds for payment, no funds deposited in the expenditure unit, can make the decentralized revenue and expenditure system originally deposited in the expenditure unit of the idle funds were effectively revitalized, at the same time, in the centralized revenue and expenditure system of revenue and expenditure information At the same time, the information of income and expenditure under the centralized income and expenditure system is real, which provides the basis for the state to make correct income and expenditure plans; secondly, under the centralized income and expenditure system of the state treasury, the state treasury pays the funds directly to the providers of commodities and services, and doesn't have to go through the layers of allocations and payments as in the case of the decentralized income and expenditure system, and finally pays the providers of commodities and services by the expenditure units, which greatly reduces the settlement of the expenditures, and likewise improves the efficiency of the funds' use; finally, after the establishment of the single account of the state treasury, the Expenditure units of financial funds (inside and outside the budget funds) are concentrated in the treasury, is conducive to the financial sector to strengthen the unified scheduling and management of funds, so that the treasury scheduling more flexible, but also will fundamentally change the current period of scattered management of financial funds, the various expenditure departments and various expenditure units of the chaotic situation of multiple account opening and duplication of accounts.

(2) is conducive to narrowing the fiscal deficit, reduce the issuance of short-term treasury bonds, but also conducive to the organic combination of fiscal policy and monetary policy.

After the establishment of a single account, all financial funds, including extra-budgetary funds are concentrated in the Treasury, the financial sector can be comprehensive operation of funds within and outside the budget, adjust the balance to make up for the shortfall. At present, China's budget deficit is large, while the extrabudgetary often have a balance, through the extrabudgetary funds to supplement the budget funds, you can narrow the fiscal deficit, but also can reduce the short-term national debt issued to make up for the fiscal deficit. On the other hand, after the establishment of the treasury single account all the financial funds in and out must go through this account, all levels of finance and all levels of the central bank can really grasp the whole picture of the financial funds for the ministry of finance and the central bank to formulate financial policy and monetary policy to provide a basis for the central bank to provide a basis for the central bank and the organic combination of fiscal policy and monetary policy.

(3) is conducive to strengthening the supervision of the treasury funds and budgetary constraints.

After the implementation of the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system, a centralized government payment system will be set up throughout the country, and all fund payments will be made through the treasury's single-account system, which will enable the treasury and the financial sector to strictly supervise the final payment of the financial funds, and will change the past decentralized revenue and expenditure system under which the treasury and the financial sector only supervised and managed the distribution and allocation of the funds. At the same time, under strict supervision, budget constraints will be further hardened.

(4) It is conducive to further cooperate with the deepening reform of the government procurement system.

The government procurement system and the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system are complementary to each other, both are the main elements of public **** expenditure management. The state treasury centralized revenue and expenditure is prone to give rise to collusion between spending units and suppliers of goods and services, only the implementation of the government procurement system can improve the openness and transparency of the spending process, so as to implement the strict control and supervision of the state treasury funds. On the other hand, with the implementation of the centralized treasury system, all financial funds are concentrated in the treasury, thus compressing all financial funds in transit, greatly reducing the resistance to the implementation of the government procurement system, and ensuring the full implementation of the government procurement system. After the implementation of the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system, government procurement is actually a specific form of centralized treasury payment.

Suggestions for improving China's centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system

1. Improve the budget management system

As analyzed earlier, there are still some problems in China's budget management system. The centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system is a core system of the budget management system, there are other related systems in the budget management system, only a good related environment, it is possible to build a perfect centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system to improve the efficiency of the management of financial funds. First, financial funds no longer distinguish between inside and outside the budget. That is, all financial funds are included in the budget, and are set up in the central bank of the single account for revenue and expenditure, so that the treasury revenue and expenditure truly reflect all the financial revenue and expenditure situation, and make all financial revenue and expenditure are included in the treasury's management and supervision; at the same time in the real financial revenue and expenditure information is conducive to the formulation of the national macro-financial policy, and is conducive to narrowing the fiscal deficit, reducing the issuance of short-term national debt. Second, establish a scientific budgeting system. One is to leave enough time for budgeting, generally one year in advance to prepare the next year's budget, the trial three-year rolling budget so as to facilitate the budget consultation and argumentation. The second is to change the budget year of the calendar year system to an inter-annual system, or change the date of the National People's Congress at all levels. China's budget year is January 1 to December 31, that is, the calendar year system, but the approval of budgets at all levels of the National People's Congress are generally in March or later meetings, which makes the first few months of the budget implementation of the lack of legal basis, so we should learn from foreign countries to implement the inter-annual system, such as the previous year's April 1 to the next year's March 31 and so on, or to change the date of the National People's Congress, so that the budget implementation of the budget before the budget draft has been adopted, and the budget of the whole year have legal basis. This will enable the draft budget to be adopted before the budget is implemented and the budget for the whole year to have a legal basis. Third, further refinement of the budget accounts, the full implementation of the departmental budget system. China's current budget subjects are more general, not conducive to the operation of the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system, so there is a need to functionally, nature of the budget subjects standardized classification, the establishment of a multi-level budget subject system, each item of expenditure should have the corresponding corresponding subjects, the budget specific to the department, unit and project.

2. Establishment of efficient financial management information system and bank fund clearing system

Financial management information system and bank fund clearing system are the technical basis for the implementation of the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system, and the final result of the development of modern information technology. The financial management information system is the electronic and networked financial management, which generally includes a series of information network systems such as budgeting system and budget execution management system, revenue management system, treasury cash management system, treasury revenue and expenditure account system and debt management system. Through these management systems, time can be saved in fiscal management, information required for fiscal management can be adequately collected, and the efficiency of fiscal management can be improved. With an efficient and sound financial management information system, the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system can maximize its efficiency. In particular, the accounting system for treasury receipts and expenditures and the treasury payment management system are, in essence, components of the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system. Through the accounting system of treasury revenue and expenditure, it can overcome the shortcomings of centralized revenue and expenditure and decentralized accounting, and also overcome the shortcomings of centralized revenue and expenditure and centralized accounting, and realize the combination of centralized revenue and expenditure, centralized accounting and decentralized accounting, and under this ideal mode, it is not only conducive to the state's management and review of treasury funds' revenue and expenditure on a case-by-case basis but also conducive to the budgetary units' full mastery of their own revenue and expenditure status and their analytical management; the treasury payment The organic combination of the management system and the bank clearing system of treasury funds can effectively improve the efficiency of treasury fund payment and strengthen the strict supervision of treasury funds. At present, China has not yet established a complete financial management information system, so we should seize the time to build a financial management information system, and in order to cooperate with the reform of the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system, we should firstly establish the treasury revenue and expenditure account system and the treasury payment management system. On the other hand, the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system needs to carry out fund transfer through the bank's fund clearing system, and a smooth fund clearing system can greatly improve the efficiency of the treasury's fund utilization. The bank fund clearing system is also an electronic and networked information system. In order to more effectively utilize the treasury funds, the treasury funds clearing system should be an independent funds payment system, independent of other bank funds clearing. The implementation of the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system requires this independent treasury funds clearing system to speed up the time of financial funds disbursement to the account, and improve the efficiency of the treasury single account clearing operations.

3. Sound treasury management and treasury cashier institutions

Since our country does not distinguish between treasury management and treasury cashier institutions, will be mixed in the central bank, which is very unfavorable to the treasury funds management and supervision, especially the implementation of the centralized treasury receipts and disbursements system of the treasury's goal is to strengthen the treasury funds receipts and disbursements of the management and supervision, so it is necessary to the treasury management and treasury cashier institution separate open, form the treasury funds between them, the centralized treasury funds clearing system. Therefore, it is necessary to separate the treasury management organization from the treasury cashier organization to form a situation of mutual control and supervision between them, so as to improve the treasury's function of supervising the financial funds. Drawing on foreign practices, China can set up a relatively independent treasury management organization within the financial department, such as the Treasury Department that has been set up in China, or the Treasury Payment Implementation Agency that is being prepared to be set up, etc., which should be popularized throughout the country as a matter of urgency. On the other hand, it is also necessary to improve the treasury's cashier institutions, due to a variety of reasons in our country in the central bank's treasury department has not been given due attention, weak awareness of the personnel, lower quality, seriously affecting the implementation of the treasury function, so the soundness of the treasury in the central bank's cashier institutions are also very necessary, and even in the ripe time, as abroad, like the establishment of an independent of the central bank's Cashier's Office.

4. Improve the single account system

Some pilot places in our country will be the treasury single account set up in the commercial banks, will result in a variety of unfavorable. So we should adhere to the treasury single account set up in the central bank, the essence of which is to adhere to the entrusted treasury system, such as the treasury single account set up in commercial banks is to implement the banking system. The banking system has no other advantages except the lower cost of the treasury, the general countries do not use. On the other hand, the zero-balance account in the single account system should be set up with objective standards and legal provisions, which is conducive to the improvement of the treasury funds clearing business, but also conducive to the maintenance of financial order, to avoid the phenomenon of economic rent-seeking. Finally, in the improvement of the single account system should be gradually extrabudgetary funds into the single account of the treasury, and the budget funds are treated equally.

5. Establishment of a sound supervision and control mechanism

Establishment of a sound supervision and control mechanism is to ensure the effective use of treasury funds, which should include the treasury department's own supervisory functions, the treasury internal supervision between the relevant departments, the treasury related business transactions of the external supervision; day-to-day supervision and professional supervision; pre-supervision, supervision and post-supervision. Of course, these supervisions are cross-cutting, specifically: the treasury department should improve its own supervision of the treasury funds revenue and expenditure functions, especially the treasury payment department of the treasury funds should be used to carry out a strict pen-by-pen audit system; the establishment of the treasury management department and the treasury cashier department of the mutual supervision of the internal control system; the central bank should be in strict accordance with the treasury payment agency's payment instructions to act on the commercial banks to deal with the fiscal The central bank should strictly follow the instructions of the treasury payment institutions, and strictly supervise the commercial banks in handling the financial clearing business; the financial departments should monitor the whole process of the operation of the treasury funds; the government auditing departments should combine the financial and treasury management system to strengthen the external supervision of the operation of the treasury funds; the people's congresses and their standing committees at all levels should strictly fulfill their duties to strengthen the external supervision of the state budget and budget execution; the government spending departments and suppliers should also have the obligation to supervise the speed and efficiency of the settlement of the treasury funds. settlement speed and efficiency; and government spending departments and suppliers should also have the obligation to supervise the speed and efficiency of the settlement of state treasury funds.

6. Improve the relevant laws, and at the same time further raise the awareness of the relevant personnel and enhance the awareness of treasury fund management

After the implementation of the treasury revenue and expenditure system, the relevant laws originally based on the decentralized revenue and expenditure system should be revised or rewritten. Such as revising the Budget Law and its implementing regulations, the State Treasury Regulations and its implementing rules, budgetary accounting system (including the general budgetary accounting system, administrative unit accounting system, institutional accounting system, tax collection and management accounting system, treasury accounting system); the formulation of the treasury revenue management methods, the revenue refund management methods, the financial funds payment management methods.

The reform of the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system affects the vested interests of some departments and related personnel, and is subject to reform resistance from these departments and personnel, so we should also let them change their mindsets, raise their awareness, and actively cooperate with the reform of the centralized treasury revenue and expenditure system, and at the same time, improve the quality of the relevant personnel, and enhance the awareness of the management of treasury funds.