The digital economy brings new challenges and new opportunities for taxation. The level of modernization of tax governance needs to be improved
How far is my country's digital tax from landing
● Facing the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the digital economy has become an important force for the world to hedge the impact of the epidemic, reshape the economic system, and improve governance capabilities
● As a major country in the digital economy, my country should attach great importance to the new challenges and opportunities of taxation brought by the digital economy, actively participate in the reconstruction of the international taxation system, strengthen the right to speak and influence in the formulation of international taxation rules, and improve the level of modernization of taxation governance , Contribute wisdom and strength to maintain a fair international tax order
● At present, my country is in the research stage of digital taxation. It is necessary to learn from international experience, find the theoretical basis for taxation system design, and conduct system research and discussion based on China's national conditions. As for further legislation and even the introduction of taxation, there is still a long time
□ Our reporter Zhao Li
□ Gu Xiaoyan, an intern of our newspaper
Facing the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the digital economy has become an important force in the global hedging of the impact of the epidemic, reshaping the economic system, and improving governance capabilities.
This year's government work report proposes to accelerate digital development, create new advantages in the digital economy, coordinate digital industrialization and industrial digital transformation, accelerate the pace of digital society construction, improve the level of digital government construction, create a good digital ecology, and build a digital China.
Experts in the industry, including many representatives of the National People’s Congress and the National People’s Congress, believe that my country, as a major country in the digital economy, should attach great importance to the new tax challenges and opportunities brought by the digital economy, actively participate in the reconstruction of the international tax system, and strengthen the formulation of international tax rules. The right to speak and influence in China, enhance the modernization of tax governance, and contribute wisdom and strength to maintaining a fair international tax order.
Pan Helin, executive dean and professor of the Institute of Digital Economy of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, said that my country has not yet followed the EU's implementation of digital tax, but with the increasing development of digital economy, digital tax may be an inevitable development of digital economy.
However, some experts believe that the current digital economy is still in its infancy and development stage, and there is still a lot of room for technology, market scale, and landing applications. At present, my country's digital taxation is in the research stage, and it is necessary to learn from international experience and find theories for tax system design. According to the basis, there is still a long time for system research and discussion in light of China's national conditions.
The rapid development of the digital economy
The traditional tax system is under attack
In recent years, with the rapid rise of the platform economy, sharing economy, and Internet celebrity economy, there has been a large increase in the number of practitioners in the new digital economy, such as e-commerce, online car-hailing, online meal delivery, express logistics, and webcasting.
According to relevant data, in 2019, the number of employees of platform companies in the new employment form reached 6.23 million, and the number of employment driven by the platform was about 78 million.
At the same time, under the normalization of the epidemic, "grocers rely on online shopping, food by takeaway, education by online classes, meetings by video, and live broadcast of goods by the whole people". "Home life" stimulates a large number of "home economy" and a large number of "home employment" emerges.
A reporter from the Rule of Law Daily noted that this year's government work report mentioned in the development goals for the next five years that it is necessary to accelerate digital development and build a digital China.
It is foreseeable that the proportion of the digital economy in GDP will continue to increase.
Liu Shangxi, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and president of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, believes that with the development and growth of the digital economy, the problem of taxation and taxation divergence has intensified. Countries are discussing the issue of digital taxation. my country also needs to explore a new tax system based on digitalization.
"Now it is a very urgent need to propose a'digital new tax system'. Due to the in-depth development of the digital economy, digital reform is no longer just a problem that digital enterprises need to solve, but a common challenge for the entire market economy." China University of Political Science and Law Research on Finance and Taxation In an interview with a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily, the director of the center Shi Zhengwen said that the "digital-based new tax system" is a new economic form based on the digital economy. It is a new tax system after the optimization and upgrade of the traditional tax system.
This shows that after digitalization is gradually integrated into the production and development of enterprises, the digitalization process has also challenged the entire tax system. The traditional tax system needs to be upgraded and reformed in conjunction with digital work.
At present, all 18 taxes in our country are affected by the digital economy.
With the continuous development and growth of the digital economy and platform economy, it has become an indisputable fact that the traditional tax system has suffered some impacts. For example, it has been suggested that traditional taxation concepts, collection and management systems, collection techniques, tax jurisdiction and tax sharing methods are no longer indisputable. Adapt to the new requirements of the development of the digital economy.
Shi Zhengwen agreed with this, and he believed that "the traditional tax system originally based on the industrial economy needs to be improved."
"At present, the speed of digitalization is too fast, and the adjustment of taxation policies is still carried out within the traditional framework. And because the online tax collection and management system is not perfect, the transactions between enterprises and individuals directly through the Internet platform are currently There is no way to levy taxes, and our country has not formulated relevant requirements and regulations for third-party payment platforms to assist in tax collection, so national taxation has not yet affected Internet companies. This is why e-commerce companies have developed rapidly but are still in policies. The phenomenon of tax avoidance caused national taxation problems, which in turn affected the fairness of enterprises and the quality of social public services.” Shi Zhengwen said, “Internet companies actually have problems with taxation and taxation sources, and their income may be mainly Concentrated in some areas where digital companies are developed, but consumers (tax sources) who actually create user value and pay taxes are distributed across the country, and the inequality between regional economic development has further increased."
In Liu Shangxi's view, the profound impact of the digital revolution on human economy and society not only affects the organizational structure of enterprises, but may also bring subversive changes to related laws and systems.
Currently, the main types of taxes are based on the industrial economy. In the future, whether it is tax collection, tax types, tax bases, etc., adaptive reforms may be required.
"As the digital economy and platform economy continue to develop and grow, there will be a taxation problem, that is, should the tax collection be in the place of production or the place of consumption? Although on the basis of the industrial economy, there are also problems of taxation and taxation sources. However, the Internet economy has exacerbated this contradiction.” Liu Shangxi said, for example, there is a digital platform in developed regions that can sell goods and provide services to the whole country. How should tax revenue be distributed among different regions?
With the continuous development of the digital economy, "our traditional tax system has been increasingly hit."
Straighten out tax system design ideas
Improve tax supporting policies
It is worth noting that the rapid development of the digital economy has given birth to new models, new business forms, and new elements. Traditional taxation systems, policies, and tax collection are facing challenges. Countries are already carrying out tax system adjustments that adapt to the trend of the digital economy.
In July 2019, France took the lead in passing the digital service tax levy bill. European countries such as Britain and Germany have successively issued tax intentions. The fierce game between the United States and Europe on digital taxes has aroused the attention of various countries to the tax policy issues of the digital economy.
For this reason, many scholars have pointed out that the scale of China's digital economy has now reached the second largest in the world. Straightening out relevant tax system design ideas and improving tax supporting policies are of great significance to standardizing the development of the digital economy.
So, what exactly is a "digital tax"?
The digital tax, or digital service tax, was conceived by the European Commission in March 2018. In less than three years, it attracted at least 23 countries to legislate and levy, covering Europe, Asia, Oceania and Africa.
The new crown pneumonia epidemic has hit the global economy, and countries’ finances are tight. Countries such as Canada have recently announced plans to levy digital taxes. This new tax has the potential to sweep the world.
According to Shi's introduction, the main purpose of digital tax is to solve the problem of taxation of cross-border digital services in the world.
The traditional international tax system usually levies taxes on cross-border companies based on the place where the company is registered. However, some digital companies do not need to establish a permanent establishment locally when providing cross-border services. Therefore, because they have not established a company in the territory of the other country, These digital companies can generate profits without having to pay taxes to the other country.
At present, this conflict is mainly reflected in Europe and the United States, because the larger digital service providers are basically in the United States, but most of the consumer behaviors such as product services, online advertising, online sales, and media interaction are in Europe or In other countries, these large digital companies never pay taxes to countries such as Europe, which has caused dissatisfaction in European countries, especially France, so the international community has also been looking for solutions for digital tax collection.
Since 2019, European countries led by France have repeatedly emphasized fiscal fairness and levied digital taxes. However, these proposals have been shelved because of pressure from the United States to increase tariffs.
Liu Shangxi believes that all countries in the world are discussing digital taxation, which can be understood as a tax category, it can also be said to be a tax category, or a tax measure.
Everyone is taking some new tax reform measures based on the rapid development of the digital economy. Countries all over the world are exploring, and we may also have to keep up with the corresponding pace.
An insider told a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily that China had previously kept a low profile in the field of digital taxation, but the situation has begun to change recently.
The article "Several Major Issues in the Country's Medium and Long-term Economic and Social Development Strategy" published on November 1, 2020 in the "Qi Shi" magazine mentioned that it is necessary to actively participate in the formulation of international rules such as digital currency and digital taxes to create new competitive advantages.
At the end of 2020, Zhu Guangyao, former deputy minister of the Ministry of Finance, stated that it is time to conduct a general study on digital taxation.
Yao Qian, director of the Science and Technology Supervision Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said that platform value comes from users. Based on the concept of “users create value”, as a public representative, is it necessary for the government to impose a digital service tax on platform companies like a natural resource tax? the study.
It is understood that the digital tax that China is being called on to be on the agenda is not mainly aimed at cross-border transactions, but the rapidly growing domestic digital economy in China.
According to calculations by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, China's digital economy reached US$5.2 trillion in 2019, ranking second in the world and accounting for more than 30% of GDP.
The large-scale digital economy, while creating convenience for economic and social development, also brings corresponding troubles and hidden worries: the digital economy has increased the difficulty of tax collection and management, resulting in unfair competition; some platforms rely on their dominant position and information asymmetry The advantages of "Thousands of People" or "Big Data", the problem of consumer rights protection is becoming more and more prominent.
Full use of digital technology
Strengthen digital taxation supervision
The road to reform is not easy.
"Because my country still lacks the top-level design of the digital tax system, it is necessary to consider some fundamental changes in the structure of the tax system, tax collection and management methods." Shi Zhengwen said, but this does not mean that we need to adopt traditional economic policies. Putting aside completely, the current traditional economy still accounts for 50% of our country. Therefore, for the traditional economy, we can still optimize and upgrade policies to better match the reality. For digital economic products, we need to make some fundamental changes and Innovation.
In this regard, Liu Shangxi also said that a new tax system based on the digital economy requires constant exploration and it is difficult to design it all at once.
Li Xiangju, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, deputy chairman of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Democratic League, and professor of the School of Economics and Finance of Xi’an Jiaotong University, pointed out: “We should also realize that the industrial chain of the new digital economy is complicated, and some new business models are even in tax collection and management. The blank area has increased the difficulty of tax source management and cross-border transaction supervision. At present, the interests of various countries in the field of digital economy are seriously unequal, and it is difficult for multilateral coordination programs to be substantively promoted."
China's digital tax is still in the research stage, and some regulators, experts and entrepreneurs have also discussed it.
For example, during the National Two Sessions this year, Ding Lei, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and CEO of NetEase, suggested that relevant departments actively carry out "digital tax" pre-judgment research and reserve responses.
Regarding how to improve the taxation system of the digital economy in my country, many people in the industry believe that in addition to the system design, it is necessary to improve the tax collection and management mechanism, set up professional tax collection and management personnel, and make full use of digital technologies such as big data, blockchain and artificial intelligence. Fangwei strengthened digital taxation supervision.
In this regard, Shi Zhengwen gave four suggestions: First, in terms of taxpayers, in the future in the digital economy environment, users will create huge value in the consumption link, which is incomparable in the past in the traditional environment. of.
Therefore, it is currently possible to consider levying taxes for natural persons in the link of consumption and distribution, that is, consider collecting taxes in the form of tax payment by the buyer, and strive to complete the tax collection by directly paying taxes when the buyer purchases products. Reduce corporate income tax and increase personal income tax.
Second, the state may also consider using “sales tax” instead of “value added tax”.
At present, value-added tax is the largest tax in my country. It levies taxes on all links from production, circulation to sales, and retail, mainly for the traditional economy represented by industry, in order to eliminate the problem of double taxation.
However, the current new economy is becoming increasingly flat and does not need to go through so many steps. Therefore, many countries are now considering levying "sales tax" instead of value-added tax.
my country’s Hainan Free Trade Port uses a separate tax system, and its purpose is to abolish value-added tax and turn the original multi-link tax collection into a retail link. It actually represents an attempt to develop and reform the tax system in my country.
Third, in terms of taxation supervision, we look forward to borrowing new technologies and third-party platforms to assist in tax collection and management.
After the development of the digital economy, corporate tax avoidance methods have increased, but the methods of tax supervision have also increased.
The newly developed communication and information technology can also help the country to levy taxes. For example, the platform’s big data can help save the electronic vouchers of the online trading platform and track personal consumption records. Therefore, it is necessary to increase cooperation with Internet companies and various third parties in the future. The coordinated work of tax collection and management of the three-party trading platform.
Fourth, the state needs to resolve the issue of the right to income from tax revenue.
The reasonable division of tax revenues in different provinces is an important prerequisite for ensuring the fair development of the regional economy.
In the past, the policy of dividing tax jurisdictions according to the place of production and registration of enterprises is no longer applicable to the current digital life.
Consumers have created huge user value, and the location of consumers has the right to levy taxes on them. Therefore, in the future, it is also necessary to consider dividing tax collection based on the total retail sales of consumer goods, rather than the location of Internet companies.