Glamor Economics

Chapter 131

Chapter 17 Section 4 Who is the ultimate tax bearer - tax incidence

In 119 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty promulgated the Order of Counting and Misting.The so-called counting is the collection of property taxes for merchants and handicraftsmen, as well as vehicle and boat taxes.Because of their concealment or false reporting, in 114 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty issued an order to reward rich people, mainly merchants, who reported on tax evasion, and gave half of the money to the informant.

Under the auspices of Yang Ke, the suspense spread throughout the country.The money taxation movement changed the nature of the money tax. First, the scope of taxation was expanded from cash and vehicles and ships to all property including fields, houses, livestock, slaves and maidservants, and all properties were converted into cash at a certain price. as a tax base.The second is that the object of taxation has been expanded from "only for merchants who live in goods" at the beginning to "everyone who has savings is hidden by the company, not only for merchants and merchants."

"Hanshu?According to the records of Shihuo Zhixia, the sue yan movement caused "most of the people above the middle class to be sued...the property of the people was worth hundreds of millions, slaves and maidservants numbered in tens of millions, hundreds of hectares in large counties, hundreds of hectares in small counties, and houses as well. Therefore, most of the merchants’ middle families are destroyed.” Although the suing mobilization increased government revenue and hit big businessmen, it also hindered the development of private industry and commerce.

The warning system lasted for nearly ten years, and it was not stopped until the country's finances improved significantly.

The concept of "tax incidence" is involved here.It refers to the ultimate economic bearer of a tax.It should be pointed out here that it is formulated relative to the statutory taxpayer.The reason for this provision is that the final tax bearer and the statutory taxpayer are sometimes inconsistent.

Maybe some people are still a little confused about this.Take personal income tax as an example. The working class is very familiar with it. The taxpayer is naturally an individual with a certain salary income, and the tax burden is not the same person?Yes, in this case the two are identical.However, taking clothes in shopping malls as an example, according to the tax law of our country, merchants are required to pay value-added tax, and merchants are legal taxpayers at this time.However, the actual tax bearers at the moment are often consumers—the amount they bear is included in the price of the clothes, but it is not indicated on the consumer's receipt.In economics, this behavior is called "tax burden shifting".In fact, there are taxes in the phone bills we pay when we make calls, and the electricity bills we pay when we use electricity. However, at present, the receipts given to consumers in our country have not indicated it.

A principle that needs to be pointed out here is that "As long as you consume, you will pay taxes." Every consumer is a taxpayer.So far, there are 22 kinds of taxes in my country (including value-added tax, consumption tax, business tax, corporate income tax, personal income tax, resource tax, real estate tax, urban maintenance and construction tax, urban real estate tax, urban land use tax, land value-added tax, cultivated land occupation tax, vehicle purchase tax, vehicle and vessel tax, deed tax, stamp duty, tobacco tax, customs duty, ship tonnage tax, etc.).Among these various taxes, some are paid by individuals, and some are paid by enterprises.

A research report once pointed out that in my country, if the price of a bag of 1 kg of salt is 1 yuan, it includes a value-added tax of about 2 yuan and an urban construction tax of about 0.29 yuan.And each bottle of beer at 0.03 yuan includes about 3 yuan of value-added tax, 0.44 yuan of consumption tax and 0.12 yuan of urban construction tax.If you buy a piece of clothing for 0.06 yuan, it includes 100 yuan of value-added tax and 14.53 yuan of urban construction tax.If you spend 1.45 yuan to buy a bottle of cosmetics, in addition to the value-added tax of 100 yuan, it also includes 14.53 yuan of consumption tax and 25.64 yuan of urban construction tax.If you smoke, a pack of cigarettes is 4.02 yuan, of which about 8 yuan is consumption tax, value-added tax and urban construction tax.If you go to a restaurant to eat, regardless of the amount at the final checkout, 4.70% of the meal fee is business tax and urban construction tax.If you use disposable wooden chopsticks, some consumption tax will also be included.You go to a barbershop to get a haircut. Similarly, 5.5% of the cost is business tax and urban construction tax... In short, as long as a person lives in the society and makes purchases, he cannot avoid paying taxes.

Therefore, it can be said that we are all taxpayers.However, as just mentioned, taxpayers and taxpayers are not the same, for this reason, we need to further understand tax burden shifting.There are many ways to transfer the tax burden, including forward transfer, backward transfer, mixed transfer, side transfer, elimination transfer, tax capitalization, etc.Here we only briefly describe a few of them.

1. Forward
The taxpayer transfers the tax burden to the consumers in the way of raising commodity prices along the direction of commodity circulation, which is called forwarding.For example, in the example of clothes mentioned above, the merchants passed the tax burden on to the consumers.

2. Back turn
Contrary to forwarding, taxpayers go against the direction of commodity circulation and pass the tax burden on to commodity suppliers by lowering the price of purchased commodities.For example, when a tax is imposed on nutritional supplements at the retail end, the retailer lowers the purchase price to purchase from the manufacturer, thereby transferring the tax burden to the manufacturer.

3. mixed rotation
Also known as scattered transfer, taxpayers distribute their tax burdens to multiple parties.Strictly speaking, it is a combination of transfer methods such as forwarding and forwarding.For example, when printing and dyeing factories face tax burdens, they pass some of them on to buyers by raising product prices, and some of them on spinning mills by lowering the purchase price of raw materials.

[links to related words]

Taxpayers refer to units and individuals that are directly responsible for tax obligations as stipulated by laws and administrative regulations.

Withholding agents refer to units and individuals that are obliged to withhold and remit, collect and remit taxes in accordance with laws and administrative regulations.Generally speaking, only units and individuals that have a payment and income relationship with the taxpayer can act as withholding agents, and their withholding obligations mainly include withholding and payment and collection and payment.

Withholding and payment Withholding and payment is a tax payment method in which units and individuals that are obligated to withhold and pay according to the tax law deduct the due tax from the income held by the taxpayer and pay it to the tax authority.

Agency collection and payment refers to the behavior of withholding agents to collect tax payable from taxpayers by means of economic relations and pay them to the treasury on their behalf.Generally speaking, when the withholding agent collects the taxpayer's relevant obligations, it shall perform the duty of collection and payment in accordance with the tax laws, administrative regulations and the provisions of the tax authorities, so as to strengthen the control of the source of tax revenue, simplify tax collection procedures, and reduce taxes. Money lost.

(End of this chapter)