How to deal with the difficulties of consumption tax reform

Do a good job in the preparation of various plans for tax collection and management. We can make preparations from the aspects of tax registration, tax declaration and source control.

On the basis of calculating the income, explore the division of income attribution. We can start with taxable items and calculate the corresponding taxes.

The background of the reform of consumption tax system can be summarized in one sentence, that is, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee put forward the requirements of perfecting the tax system and adjusting the scope, links and tax rates of consumption tax. So why did the Central Committee propose this reform at this time?

Re-understanding of the reform of consumption tax system

The starting point of my thinking is this:

Reforming the production of consumption tax is one of the steps to establish a local tax system, which accords with the reform idea of the Fourth Plenary Session on governing the country according to law. As we know, in the 20 years of fiscal and taxation practice from 65438 to 0994, the central government has never really admitted that China has a local tax system. If there is, it can only be described as a local income system.

The local tax system is very different from the local income system. The former needs to fix some taxes through local legislation, while the latter mainly temporarily stabilizes some incomes through staged artificial games, which is actually related to "ruling the country according to law".

To establish a local tax system in the form of legislation, it is necessary to break the current situation that the central government monopolizes the legislative power and management power of all taxes and divide tax revenue in proportion. Under the principle that part of the tax revenue is returned to the local government, a relatively safe local subordinate law under the central superior law should be established, and a transfer payment bill between the higher and lower governments should be established accordingly.

As far as turnover tax is concerned, which tax is legislated by the local government? In the case that the "reform of the camp" is gradually in place, the answer is clear: consumption tax.

Since the consumption tax is chosen as the local tax, it must be "moved back" from the collection link for three reasons:

First, the characteristics of local tax in the process of collection naturally appear. As we know, whether a tax is a central tax or a local tax generally depends on three factors: the liquidity of the tax base, the excessive competitiveness of the tax base and the size of regional characteristics. When the first two factors are large, in principle, as a central tax, it will be collected by the local state taxation bureau; When the latter factor is obvious, in principle, as a local tax, it will be collected by the local tax bureau. Compared with value-added tax and business tax, consumption tax is special in that it does not tax general goods and services, but taxes special consumer goods and services.

Therefore, at present, the consumption tax is equal to the value-added tax, which is levied by the local tax bureau in the production process, mainly to prevent excessive competition in the tax base. In this regard, some practitioners have published an article that if the consumption tax is collected by the local taxation bureau and the income is owned by the local authorities, the situation of inter-regional investment and factory competition will become more and more fierce, and the national tobacco factories and wineries we see are not the current quantitative concepts of 100 and 1000. In the future, the consumption tax will be moved from the production link to the retail link, and the situation will be greatly improved. The geographical characteristics of the tax base are obvious, because whoever pays the bill will pay taxes there, and the consumption tax revenue has nothing to do with local factories, and the problem of excessive competition in the tax base will be alleviated. At the same time, the enthusiasm of local governments to increase residents' income and encourage residents' consumption will also be enhanced, and the characteristics of local taxes will naturally emerge.

The second is the backward movement of the collection link, in line with the upcoming environmental protection tax. We know that the object of environmental protection tax collection is pollutant discharge, and whoever discharges pollutants pays taxes, which determines that taxes must be collected in production. At the same time, we have also noticed that some experts put forward in theory and practice that some products with high energy consumption and high pollution should be included in the scope of consumption tax, and those who consume these products should pay taxes. Therefore, when we compare these two taxes in the same project, we find that if environmental protection tax and consumption tax are levied on highly polluting products in the production process, there will be repeated taxation. In order to avoid this situation, the reasons for moving the consumption tax to the retail sector are naturally formed, that is, environmental protection tax is levied on the sewage in the production sector and consumption tax is levied on the sewage products in the retail sector.

Third, the collection link moved back and the tax source base was strengthened. At present, most taxable consumer goods are mainly collected in production, except for gold and silver jewelry in retail and cigarettes in production and wholesale. The disadvantage of this is that when some domestic and foreign production enterprises evade the investigation and adjustment of transfer pricing by various means and sell taxable consumer goods to domestic independent accounting sales companies at relatively low prices, the consumption tax that should have been levied on production or import has been eroded on the tax base.

Ernst & Young's annual report observes that due to this loophole in China's tax system, news that foreign high-end consumer goods companies set up factories in China is rare, but news of opening stores for sale is increasing day by day. Therefore, the collection of consumption tax in the retail sector can effectively change the above situation and strengthen the tax source base.

Reflections on coping with new situations and problems

In the case that the ownership of consumption tax revenue tends to be clear, and it is difficult to completely cancel the tax revenue enjoyed by * * * *, all localities and departments should take corresponding measures as soon as possible to deal with the possible new situations and problems in the following aspects:

First, recognize the direction of the central government on the issue of tax legislative power in the future.

At present, the reform idea advocated by the theoretical and practical circles is that, according to the requirement of "under the premise of unified tax management, local governments should be given appropriate tax management power", except for the central tax and the legislative power of * * *, the central government should uniformly formulate basic laws and regulations for national local main taxes such as consumption tax, but the provincial (city) government should be appropriately given the right to interpret the tax law within a certain range, and the right to increase or decrease sub-tax items under certain general tax items, within the prescribed tax rate range and on some projects. Only by collecting and judging the above information can local governments and departments take the initiative in the lower-level legislation of local main taxes such as consumption tax in the future.

Second, put forward the countermeasures or ideas for the reform of consumption tax system to the central government in time.

Reasonable suggestions can be put forward from the scope, specific links and tax rate model of consumption tax.

In terms of the scope of consumption tax collection, the basic understanding has been formed that, except imported cosmetics, domestic popular cosmetics can be excluded from the existing scope of taxation, and private yachts, high-end furniture and some high-energy and high-pollution projects can be included in the scope of taxation.

In addition, it can be further suggested that the central government remove the following tax items from the existing tax scope: First, disposable wooden chopsticks, because the relevant departments in the State Council have taken administrative compulsory measures to prohibit the production and circulation of disposable wooden chopsticks by 20 10. Followed by alcohol and automobile tires, because these products are the consumption of intermediate materials in the production process, which contradicts the principle of levying consumption tax on special consumer goods in the final consumption process.

In the specific collection of consumption tax, it is reasonable to collect consumption tax based on consumption link, so we can further suggest that the central government change the concept of "retail link" to "consumption link" in the legislation of the central superior law. This is because in economics, people generally regard production and consumption as a group of common nouns. Since production is not taxed, it should be taxed in consumption.

Secondly, in China's GDP accounting, consumption consists of retail sales and wholesale, which lays a legal foundation for tax authorities to collect some tax items in the wholesale sector. For example, from the actual situation in China, the distribution of fuel wholesale enterprises in the country is relatively balanced, with less inter-provincial sales. Compared with the retail sector, it is more difficult to supervise, so it is undoubtedly a better choice to levy consumption tax on refined oil in the wholesale sector.

Finally, the original country strictly controls the consumption tax of cigarettes through production and wholesale. If the "retail link" is adopted and the wholesale link is excluded, if the tax rate is basically unchanged, the two links will become one link, which will inevitably mean the weakening of cigarette consumption regulation.

In the mode selection of consumption tax rate, except for cigarettes, alcohol, automobiles, high energy consumption and high pollution commodities, proportional tax rate and fixed tax rate are still adopted. We can further suggest that the central government adopt a progressive tax rate different from the proportional tax rate for luxury goods such as private yachts, airplanes, high-end bags and furniture.

Third, make preparations for various plans to deal with tax collection and management. We can make preparations from the aspects of tax registration, tax declaration and source control.

In terms of tax registration and tax declaration, it has become a fact that the tax collection link has moved backward, which has brought great challenges to the basic work of the tax department and needs to be dealt with in time. This is because there were relatively few units and individuals who filled in the Registration Form for the Production and Operation of Taxable Consumer Goods according to the requirements of State Taxation Administration of The People's Republic of China in the past, and there were few tax returns, but this situation will change greatly in the future. Take the tobacco and automobile industries as an example: in some provinces and cities with large production scale of taxable consumer goods in China, after the production link is changed to retail link, the change ratio of the number of taxpayers is about 1: 150, and a large number of individual industrial and commercial households are approved to levy taxes, which brings new challenges to the tax authorities. Relevant government departments should set up a special working group to carefully sort out and make a scientific response.

In the aspect of source control, after the collection link is moved back, it needs to be studied in time in the face of the diversification of sales channels and the uncertainty of calculation methods. This is because, in addition to physical stores, online sales have gradually become an important retail channel in social life. If the policy of non-taxation is still adopted for most online retailing, it is inevitable that the consumption tax source will be reduced in the future. The tax department should study with relevant departments in time, learn from the experience of online shopping tax system successfully developed by Amazon and other foreign companies, and introduce effective monitoring technical support measures as soon as possible.

Secondly, the current tax law requires the taxable consumer goods produced by production enterprises to be used for gifts, sponsorship, advertisements, samples, employee benefits, etc. In the absence of ex-factory price of similar products, it is calculated according to the cost-profit method. If the collection link is moved back to the retail price, how to adjust the existing calculation method requires the tax authorities to introduce relevant measures in time.

Finally, regarding the issue of "increase or decrease" tax levied by the customs on imported taxable consumer goods, if the central government maintains the existing method unchanged, how can retail enterprises deduct the consumption tax already levied on the import link after the collection link is moved back requires the tax authorities to formulate corresponding countermeasures.

Fourth, on the basis of doing a good job in income calculation, explore the division of income attribution. We can start with taxable items and calculate the corresponding taxes.

From the statistical data of the whole country and some provinces and cities in recent years, it can be seen that among the 14 tax items of consumption tax, the domestic consumption tax income of cigarettes, wine, oil and automobiles accounts for more than 90% of all domestic consumption tax income, so it is necessary to pay special attention to these tax items.

In view of the income gap caused by the incorporation of consumption tax into the local tax system in the future, and after the "value-added tax reform" is put in place (the central government cancels the full refund), the central and local governments should jointly explore some solutions to the division of income from tax categories, in accordance with the requirement of "keeping the income pattern of the central and local governments basically unchanged" put forward in the overall plan for deepening the reform of fiscal and taxation system.

As far as the attribution of income tax revenue is concerned, enterprise income tax (excluding central enterprises with overall situation) has certain regional characteristics, while individual tax shows certain characteristics of factor flow. Therefore, when the conditions are ripe in the future, enterprise income tax can be incorporated into the local tax system and individual tax into the central tax system.

If the above ideas are difficult to operate in the near future, we should learn from the legislative experience of central and local tax systems in some western developed countries, including value-added tax and income tax, and implement the idea of tax rate sharing system on the basis of canceling the proportional sharing system, that is, on the basis of not increasing the tax burden of taxpayers, the central and local governments should jointly levy it.

In the specific operation process, the level of tax sharing among provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) should be different. In principle, in areas where the income is obviously reduced after the tax reform, the tax rate shared by local governments can be appropriately increased, and the tax rate shared by the central government can be reduced accordingly; At the same time, in order to improve the efficiency of tax administration, local tax bureaus can entrust local tax bureaus to collect taxes and charge a certain fee to make up for the cost of collection and management. Doing so, on the one hand, balances the vested interests of the two levels of government; On the other hand, it has also accelerated the pace of building an all-round local tax system.