农产品增值税处理规则的完善

On the Treatment of A gricultural Products in VAT Legislation

理想的增值税制应覆盖所有商品和服务。然而,基于公平原则和缓解增值税的累退性需要,如何对农产品课征增值税便成为增值税法设计中的经典技术难题。伴随增值税制度的不断发展,很多国家尝试将农产品全面纳入增值税征税范围。例如欧盟在统一增值税制度之初便确立了对农产品免税并实行统一比率补偿的处理方法。作为农业大国,我国关于农产品的增值税处理规则呈现出免税要件界定不清、农产品增值税抵扣不合理以及税收优惠政策实效不佳的困境。增值税法上农产品的处理规则应遵循税收中性和税收公平的基本理念,为此,我国在增值税法上应进一步明确农产品免税要件的界定、改进农产品抵扣机制、完善农产品税收优惠政策。

An ideal VAT system should cover all goods and services.However,based on the principle of equity and the need to mitigate the regressivity of VAT,how to impose VAT on agricultural products has become a classic technical challenge in the design of VAT laws.As the cradle of VAT,the European Union(EU),at the beginning of the harmonisation of VAT systems,established the treatment of agricultural products as exempted and compensated at a flat rate.Later,with the continuous development of the VAT system,many countries tried to fully include agricultural products into the scope of VAT.As a large agricultural country,China's VAT rules on agricultural products show the dilemmas of unclear definition of tax exemption,unreasonable VAT credit for agricultural products and ineffective tax incentives.The treatment rules of agricultural products in the VAT law should follow the basic concepts of tax neutrality and tax equity.For this reason,China's VAT law should further clarify the definition of tax exemption elements for agricultural products,improve the mechanism of agricultural products'deduction,and further improve the tax preferential policies for agricultural products.