1. Salary expenditure. Including wages, subsidized wages, employee welfare funds, collective welfare subsidies, employee incentives, etc. Since the cost and efficiency of taxation are mainly the evaluation of on-the-job personnel, this series should not include "the salary expenditure of retirees".
2. Official expenditure. Including official expenses and employee education expenses incurred within one year. That is to say, all "public funds" except "collection and management facilities purchase and construction fees" are excluded.
3. Operating expenses. Including ticket account printing fees, collection and management fees, publicity and education fees, ticket management fees, post and telecommunications transportation fees, rural snacks and subsidies, other business fees, remuneration for tax withholding, remuneration for hiring tax collectors, remuneration for tax protection, market management fees, etc. In addition, the collection of hall construction fees and collection and management facilities purchase and construction fees directly serve the collection and management business and should also be incorporated into this series.
4. Capital construction expenditure. It mainly includes the construction and repair costs of various training and education houses for office, residence and tax personnel. This kind of expenditure has certain stages and particularity, and is generally not directly included in the tax cost to evaluate the tax efficiency of a place.
5. Abnormal expenditure. Mainly refers to all kinds of unexpected expenses and entertainment expenses that are not directly related to the development of tax business due to abnormal factors.
The analysis system of factors affecting tax cost is the sum of various laws and regulations. Judging from the impact on tax cost, the systems that lead to high tax cost can be divided into accounting system, organization system, tax system and administrative supervision system. (1) Lack of effective cost accounting system In accounting, the current tax authorities implement two sets of parallel accounting methods: one is tax collection and settlement accounting, which is mainly responsible for tax collection and settlement accounting; The second is administrative unit accounting, which is responsible for accounting the distribution of funds and the use of expenditures by tax authorities. Because the contents of these two accounting methods are different, they are not related to each other and belong to the traditional "two lines of revenue and expenditure". Although the tax authorities can avoid withholding taxes, it also leads to the fact that tax authorities rarely compare tax revenue with expenditure when organizing tax collection and management, lacking the concept of tax cost, and forming an extensive management model that pays more attention to income than cost.
(2) Unreasonable tax organization.
1. The separation of national tax and local tax increases the taxation cost.
From the composition of tax cost. The infrastructure expenses, equipment expenses, office expenses and personnel expenses of tax authorities are all tax costs, so the increase of tax costs is closely related to the establishment of tax institutions.
The separation of national tax and local tax is an institutional innovation under the tax-sharing financial system, which has a positive role in mobilizing the enthusiasm of the central and local governments to a certain extent and stimulating the efficiency of tax collection and management in various places. However, China's tax-sharing reform was carried out under special historical conditions, with the characteristics of transition from planned economy system to market economy system. Therefore, there are many problems in the operation of national tax and local tax system, one of which is the high tax cost. Because the establishment of tax institutions belongs to the allocation of tax resources, every time an organization or institution is added, it is necessary to allocate corresponding places, personnel and office facilities. , regardless of the proportion of physical resources (such as equipment, funds, etc.). ) or intangible resources (such as systems, regulations, policies, information, etc.). ), which will inevitably lead to an increase in tax costs. In recent years, local tax bureaus have set up their own collection halls and inspection bureaus, resulting in two collection halls and two inspection bureaus for national tax and local tax in the same area. This not only increases the cost of infrastructure, but also increases the cost of taxation, so taxpayers have to go to two tax collection halls to declare their taxes. Accepting the investigation of the two inspection bureaus also increased the tax payment cost.
2. Setting up tax agencies according to administrative divisions also increases the cost of taxation.
In terms of the establishment of tax institutions, China has always been set up according to administrative divisions. The establishment of a first-level tax authority by a first-level government has little to do with the tax sources. Different economic scales and different tax sources have formed the same tax administration, resulting in insufficient tax sources, excessive tax agencies and tax personnel with scattered tax sources in underdeveloped areas, and even making ends meet. Although the distribution of tax sources is close to China's national conditions, from the perspective of tax cost, it will inevitably lead to too detailed tax institutions, scattered tax sources and increased tax costs. In developed countries, tax authorities are generally set up according to economic regions, according to the division of business and the distribution of taxpayers, just as there are only 10 collection centers in France and only 7 collection centers in the United States. This practice is conducive to closely linking the input of tax sources with the structure of tax sources, putting limited economic resources into the best areas or the most urgently needed places, improving the intensive functions of tax authorities, and thus reducing the cost content of unit taxes.
(3) The current tax system is not perfect. Tax system is an important factor affecting tax cost. Generally speaking, a scientific and reasonable tax system should have a broad tax base, sufficient tax sources and a simple tax system. Easy collection and management, low collection and management cost. However, China's tax system is still not scientific and perfect, mainly in the following aspects:
1. Tax design is not scientific.
Decision-making mistakes are the biggest waste. If tax design is unreasonable and unscientific, there will be a lot of new situations and problems after the tax system enters the implementation stage. In order to solve these problems, new supplementary regulations are constantly introduced, resulting in the disorder and dispersion of the tax system. China's tax system has this problem. The interim provisions of various taxes are generally general and lack maneuverability. In order to make up for this defect, various implementation rules, tax law interpretation and supplementary provisions have been introduced one after another. Some new regulations have not been abolished and belong to new regulations. It is very complicated, and even some supplementary provisions will be out of line and contradictory with the original provisions. A typical example is personal income tax, which makes tax collectors and taxpayers at a loss. Therefore, we must constantly study, publicize and explain the new provisions of the tax law, and constantly adjust our knowledge of tax law. Obviously, the more frequently the tax law is updated, the higher the taxation cost.
2. The tax system is very complicated.
No matter how the tax system is simplified, there must be tax costs, but the complexity of the tax system is different, and the impact on tax costs is also different. The more complicated the tax system, the higher the cost of tax collection and management. Because, the more complicated the tax laws and regulations, the tax authorities will inevitably spend more time and energy to study, publicize and implement the tax law. The complicated tax laws and regulations not only bring difficulties to the approval, collection and inspection of taxes, but also easily provide taxpayers with opportunities for tax evasion, that is, the possibility of tax evasion is greatly increased. In order to prevent and reduce taxpayers from evading their tax obligations, tax authorities should increase the input of manpower, material resources and financial resources, which will further increase the tax cost. A typical example is personal income tax (itemized collection).
Throughout the history of China's taxation, the early taxes were called ancient direct taxes, with population and land as the main tax targets, because the tax sources of these taxes were relatively stable, which could guarantee the country's tax revenue. Another important reason is that these poll taxes and land taxes are simple to calculate, taxpayers are not easy to evade their tax obligations, easy to manage and collect, and the tax collection cost is low. Under modern economic conditions, social and economic relations are becoming more and more complicated. Taxation is not only an important tool for the state to collect income, but also an important lever for the state to regulate the economy. Taxation should not only solve the problem of fiscal revenue, but also give consideration to social fairness and efficiency. Tax laws and regulations are becoming more and more complicated, and tax costs are also rising.
3. Unreasonable tax incentives
Tax preference is a kind of tax policy aimed at specific taxpayers, and it is a reverse adjustment of tax policy. If used properly, it can solve some special problems, otherwise it will be counterproductive.
China's current preferential tax policies can be said to be "a dime a dozen". Not only are there preferential tax policies in the provisional regulations of each tax category, but there are also more detailed preferential tax policies in the implementation rules. In addition, some temporary preferential tax policies are introduced from time to time. Excessive tax incentives not only directly reduce the national tax revenue, but also lead to unfair tax burden of taxpayers. For example, some taxpayers will choose tax avoidance or tax evasion to reduce this unfair influence and increase the cost of tax authorities to combat tax avoidance and tax evasion.
(IV) Imperfect tax cost supervision system According to China's actual situation, there is no system regulation on tax cost information disclosure at present. Tax costs are regarded as confidential by tax authorities at all levels and are not made public. It is generally difficult for even internal employees to obtain these data.
The author believes that the tax authorities, as the administrative organs of the government, are funded by the state free of charge and use taxpayers' money, but taxpayers have no way of knowing how the tax is used. Judging from the fiscal expenditure published every year in China, the content is too general, the information used in tax expenditure is not open enough, and the public supervision is not enough. The imperfection of this supervision mechanism, on the one hand, easily leads to excessive use of funds and breeds corruption; On the other hand, taxpayers do not understand the purpose of tax, and it is easy to have resistance to tax payment. Both of them will lead to an increase in tax costs. Effective ways to control tax cost