"Gray income" is not a new topic, but it is a topic that needs attention from time to time. "Gray income" refers to all kinds of income between legal income and illegal income. In a sense, "gray income", like "hidden income", has a certain "reasonable existence space" in a certain period of time. But at the same time, we should also see that "gray income" often exposes some social problems and institutional chronic diseases. Invisible with these incomes are the inequality between the rich and the poor and the unhealthy social atmosphere that the society is highly concerned about.
Nowadays, the Gini coefficient reflecting the gap between the rich and the poor in society is increasing day by day. It is of great practical significance to pay attention to the phenomenon of "gray income" of China people today, when the central authorities resolutely correct unhealthy practices that harm the interests of the masses and severely crack down on corruption that occurs around the masses.
What do you know about gray income?
There are many kinds of "grey income" of civil servants. Receiving gifts in non-official activities; Have the conditions to hold a post or part-time job in a temporary organization and get various remuneration; Engage in various welfare and subsidies in the unit under various excuses; In non-official activities, some people frequently accept various invitations from other units and individuals, such as drinking, jumping off buildings, fishing and washing. Some are * * *, some are obvious department, industry or post characteristics.
At present, the phenomenon of "gray income" has the general characteristics of concealment, diversity and universality, and there are three major tendencies: First, the object of seeking "public funds". The main source of "gray income" is public funds, and the main channels are all kinds of direct or disguised "turning public into private"; The second is to seek "collectivization". The bonus and subsidy distributed by the unit under various excuses are generally collectively studied by the leading group, and everyone has a share; The third is the "defense" of the existing atmosphere. Some civil servants use various reasons and excuses to accept "gray income" with peace of mind. In particular, some public servants use their powers to seek "gray income" and accumulate ill-gotten wealth, which has become a prominent problem that plagues the building of a clean and honest party style and is very harmful.
The amount of gray income is huge, so it is impossible to get the real statistical data of this part of income. For example, the relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Land and Resources said that the country loses nearly 10 billion yuan of state-owned land income every year, which is obviously transformed into gray income. For another example, an Austrian economist believes that the world's formal economy GDP is 39 trillion US dollars, and the informal underground economy GDP is 9 trillion US dollars, 4 1. The ratio of formal economy to informal economy in developed countries is 6.5 1, and that in developing countries is 3 1. Hu Angang, a Chinese scholar, thinks that the total amount of tax loss, state-owned economic investment and fiscal expenditure loss, black economic income and monopoly industry rent is about ... 1 trillion yuan, equivalent to 15% of GDP. From here, we can be sure that the number of gray income and black income in China is considerable. As evidence, a survey by Outlook News Weekly shows that in some counties and cities in underdeveloped areas in China, the annual income of individual leaders is not black, and the gray income alone can reach 654.38+10,000 yuan, while that in developed areas can reach 200,000 yuan.
Gray income widens the personal wage gap in China. In a sense, gray income is the "patent" of powerful corrupt officials. There is a corrupt official named Zheng in Jiangxi. In order to collect money, no matter how his hometown builds a house, his children celebrate their birthdays, get married and go to college, he must inform his subordinate units. Who doesn't understand? Who dares not to "mourn"? For my daughter's birthday, the birthday gift sent in one day reached 654.38+10,000 yuan. Judging from the situation of corrupt officials who have been investigated in recent years, the amount of property with gray income is far greater than the amount of corruption and bribery it has been identified. Ouyang Song, the former mayor of Yueyang City, Hunan Province, has a family property worth 3.89 million yuan, and his "gray income" is 3.34 million yuan, accounting for 85.6% of all the property.
Not long ago, the survey on the income gap between urban and rural areas in China, which was completed by the Institute of Economics of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for several years, became the focus of public opinion at home and abroad. Because this report shows that the income gap between urban and rural areas in China is "the highest in the world". Shi Li, a researcher at the Institute of Economics of China Academy of Social Sciences and the author of the survey report, explained that "the world's highest": if only monetary income is counted, not physical objects, China may not be the highest, while Zimbabwe is higher than China. The conclusion of the survey is that China is "the highest in the world" because non-monetary factors are considered in the survey.
Gray income exploited the loophole of the law.
The phenomenon of "gray income" is not accidental, it is related to our cultural tradition and realistic institutional mechanism. Especially in some industries and fields, the income gap is very large. Due to the low overall wage income, some departments will use their power to generate income. These illegal "gray incomes" take many forms, and corruption and bribery of a few officials is one of them. The current criminal law imposes a maximum sentence of five years on "unknown property" with gray income. Although the criminal law defines the content of unidentified property sources, it does not define specific sentencing standards, which makes many laws and systems have "loopholes". Some corrupt officials took advantage of the "loopholes" of the law, reduced the cost of crime, and some even escaped the legal sanctions and punishment.
For example, a corrupt official in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province was sentenced to 200,000 yuan in bribes and confiscated 50,000 yuan in property, but his gray income reached 600,000 yuan. Lu, former deputy director of the Public Security Department of Hainan Province, was sentenced to 10/0 year for accepting bribes, and was sentenced to only four years for possessing RMB 3.57 million, US$ 90,000 and HK$ 480,000. Lu can't explain the source of his millions of property, and his behavior is no less harmful to society than accepting bribes of RMB 654.38+RMB 8,000. Four years' imprisonment is obviously too light to make people angry.
Although there is a crime of "huge property with unidentified sources" in law, the society has questioned the law and even the whole rule of law because of the lack of operability in actual implementation of the existing legal provisions. In this regard, the broad masses expressed indignation, and even judicial personnel were puzzled. Singapore's Anti-Corruption Law stipulates that when civil servants can't explain the legal source of their property, they will all be regarded as the proceeds of corruption. This practice is worth learning from.
In the process of handling cases in reality, leading cadres engaged in "black" and "gray" income, and the income and expenditure obviously did not match, but few people traced it. Mu Zao, the former mayor of Shenyang, exposed his "wardrobe corruption" when he invited a group of Hong Kong journalists to Shenyang on 1998. When reporters were talking about Mu's speech in public, a Hong Kong reporter kept a close eye on Mayor Mu's "wardrobe": shirts, ties, suits, leather shoes … all famous brands. Mu Sui Xin's "wardrobe" is roughly calculated to be at least tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars.
Now some leading cadres pay attention to ostentation and extravagance, wear high-grade clothes, live in luxury, spend money like water and put on airs. For such "officials", as long as their income and expenditure are calculated, the serious problems of "insider" and "tricky" are self-evident. It can be seen that the profits of officials, especially profiteering, are almost illegal, and the necessary premise or the only way for them to realize profiteering is inevitable corruption. In addition, there can be no other legitimate, reasonable and legal channels of "getting rich" and "huge" sources.
In some places, the system of reporting major events for leading cadres, the system of reporting personal income, and the system of registering gifts received. It caused a sensation of "for a while" and became the first tight and then loose, which was counterproductive and even counterproductive.
Gray income needs effective governance.
Experts and scholars from the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences believe that there is no need to stick to the general legal procedures such as "plaintiff's proof" on anti-corruption issues in the case of imperfect laws. In order to stop the spread of corruption such as gray income, the state should adopt some methods of "presumption of guilt". For example, the property that exceeds my income too much should be proved by myself and the source should be explained. If you can't prove it, it should be regarded as illegal income, punished and confiscated. The income of government officials should be clearly defined in law: only legal and illegal, not "gray" and "yellow"! When its expenditure exceeds its legitimate income, the supervisory organ must really intervene. Officials suspected of taking bribes should be allowed to produce evidence to prove that their income is "legal", and the supervisory organs should not be allowed to find evidence to prove that their income is "illegal".
In addition, the government should strengthen effective governance for the trend of gray income growth. In recent years, governments at all levels are taking some measures to eradicate gray income. For example, strengthen public finance management, strictly control extra-budgetary income and so on.
The government has taken effective measures to crack down on illegal "gray income" with legal weapons, and the public security and procuratorial organs have successively launched various special struggles and achieved certain results. In order to completely eradicate the "gray income" of leading cadres, Hunan Province has made a heavy blow: Party and government leading cadres who illegally accept gifts, securities and valuables and fail to register and hand them in according to the regulations will all be punished as corruption. If the amount is less than 1000 yuan, it shall be criticized and educated, ordered to write a review, and recorded in the clean government file. If the amount 1000 yuan is more than 2,000 yuan, disciplinary action shall be given; Anyone whose amount exceeds 2000 yuan shall be dismissed first and then given disciplinary action. In addition, several "high-voltage lines" have been stipulated: it is strictly forbidden for staff of party and government organs to give and receive gifts, securities and valuables in official activities; It is strictly forbidden to accept gifts, securities and valuables from non-relatives and friends in non-official activities; It is forbidden to give gifts, securities and valuables in the name of festivals and celebrations; It is strictly forbidden to accept bonuses and valuables issued by subordinate units; Leading cadres who have been approved to take part-time jobs, including those working in temporary institutions, shall not receive part-time remuneration. Spouses and children of leading cadres are not allowed to take advantage of the influence of leading cadres' powers and positions to receive gifts, securities and valuables. Offenders, whether leading cadres know it or not, should be held accountable.
In this regard, Shenzhen has also made some useful explorations: they will promote the reform of the financial management system, improve the departmental budget and the centralized treasury collection and payment system, and explore the establishment of a clean government provident fund system. The anti-corruption provident fund will be organized by the government in a unified way, and part of the money will be taken out from the welfare fund of the usual official duties to establish the anti-corruption provident fund. If civil servants do not commit any violations during their tenure, they will be expected to receive 1 10,000 ~ 2 million yuan of ICAC provident fund according to different levels when they retire. If there is any violation of discipline in the post, ICAC provident fund will be deducted as appropriate until the full amount is deducted.