中国个人所得税的收入调节功能及其问题

The Impacts of Personal Income Tax on the Income Disparity in China

全世界的研究者都在关注着中国的经济增长及其社会影响,其中收入差距是制约中国扩大内需的重要因素之一.从全球范围内来看,以消除收入差距为目的的个人所得税改革正成为实现经济稳定的重要课题.在中国,个人所得税在缩小收入差距方面似乎起到了一定的调节作用,但是有关地区和税种间关系的研究表明,东部地区的工资、薪金收入的税收较为集中,利息、股息、红利税收收入在同一时期的增长却较为缓慢,而与此同时存款余额大幅度增长,这不禁使人推测偷漏税现象的存在.诸多研究和报道都表明,中国的富裕阶层正在以更改国籍、通过企业进行直接投资等方式将收入与财产转移到国外,其中流向避税地的可能性较大,这使得征税基础受到瓦解,缩小收入差距的努力也常常付之东流.为此,应广泛运用2008年引入的避税地对策税制来改革现有的税收制度。

This paper examines the relationship between personal income tax and the income inequality in China. According to statistics,we can find that personal income tax is still a tiny part of the total revenue of Chinese government but it is increasing as the national economy grows. Besides,most of the revenue comes from the more developed provinces. Therefore,personal income tax seems to function as leverage for balancing inequality. However,if we break the total revenue according to taxable items and regions,we can also find that,in the eastern part of China,income tax revenue comes more from wage and salary than from interest,dividend,and bonus,which implies that tax evasion in terms of unearned income may be quite widespread. It seems that the higher-income class in China tends to evade taxes by transferring their income and property to foreign countries,mostly offshore tax havens,by changing their own nationality or by pretending to launch some investments abroad. A certain "social exclusion at the top"is on the scene,which would definitely sabotage the attempt to mend existing income inequality. Therefore, the author suggests strengthening tax collection management over higher-income class and ending the tax drain towards tax havens by introducing the "anti-tax haven measures"to the incumbent personal income tax law.