Why is “taxpayer awareness” lacking?

Text/Zhong Yongsheng and Wang Hongrui’s tax awareness that separates from rights and blindly emphasizes tax obligations can only be a castle in the air. In today’s market economy, it is difficult to truly establish in people’s minds that taxation is the state’s purpose to satisfy social welfare* **Need, a kind of fiscal revenue obtained by relying on political power and in accordance with legal standards and procedures to collect compulsorily and free of charge from members of society. "Taxpayer consciousness" is a rational understanding of the spirit of the tax law and a conscious pursuit of the spirit of the tax law based on the taxpayer's correct understanding of their own subject status, their own existence value, and their own rights and obligations under the conditions of market economy and democratic rule of law. . The establishment of "taxpayer awareness" is the cornerstone for the effective realization of tax functions and the correct implementation of the national tax system, and is an important symbol of social civilization and progress. The essence of taxation: “Taxation is the wet nurse that feeds the government.” From ancient civilizations such as the Great Wall of China and the pyramids of ancient Egypt to many modern large-scale projects, taxpayers’ power is embedded in various social welfare undertakings today. The role of national taxation is indispensable. American scholar Holmes once said that "taxation is the price of civilization", which revealed the essence of taxation in one sentence. Human civilization is the crystallization of human wisdom, and taxation is the way from wisdom to civilization. As a bridge between taxpayers and the government in modern society, taxation serves as a link between taxpayers' rights and government obligations. It demonstrates to the world with irrefutable eloquence that taxpayers have the right to supervise every penny spent by the government. . As Marx said: "Taxation is the wet nurse that feeds the government." The Chinese nation has created a splendid Chinese civilization for five thousand years. The Chinese people have the most say on tax issues. As a nation with a history of paying taxes for five thousand years, the people's awareness of paying taxes is not weak. But why is it that today, when the construction of China's socialist market economic system is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, there is still a relatively serious phenomenon of tax evasion, with the amount of tax evasion reaching hundreds of billions every year. Other tax-related crimes include falsely issuing value-added tax invoices and fraudulently obtaining export tax refunds. , violent tax resistance and other cases also occur from time to time. In this regard, people often accuse Chinese people of lacking tax awareness. Has the awareness of paying taxes that we have cultivated over five thousand years completely disappeared? The problem is not that simple. The so-called tax awareness usually refers to the degree of awareness and evaluation of taxes by citizens, legal persons or other organizations and the degree of consciousness in correctly performing tax obligations. The simple awareness of taxation only one-sidedly emphasizes the obligation to pay taxes and ignores the rights that should be enjoyed due to taxation. This is the crux of the matter. Because "there are no rights without obligations, and there are no obligations without rights." A tax awareness that separates from rights and only emphasizes tax obligations can only be a castle in the air. In today's market economy, it is difficult to truly establish it in people's minds. Taxpayers' rights: Know how the money they pay is spent. The "Tax Collection and Administration Law of the People's Republic of China" stipulates that taxpayers have the right to learn from the tax authorities about the provisions of national tax laws, administrative regulations and tax payment procedures. circumstances; the right to require the tax authorities to keep their business secrets and personal privacy confidential; the right to apply for tax reductions, exemptions, and refunds in accordance with the law; the right to state and defend decisions made by the tax authorities, and to apply for administrative reconsideration and initiate administrative proceedings. The right to litigate and request state compensation; the right to accuse or report tax authorities and tax personnel for their illegal and disciplinary behavior. Taxpayers have the right to participate in the formulation of tax laws in the form prescribed by law; they have the right to pay attention to the use of tax revenue and actively provide opinions and suggestions on legislation, law enforcement, and judicial activities. In addition, taxpayers also enjoy many other rights in the country's economic, political, and social life. In short, taxpayers should be the masters of the country. It is the taxes they pay that support the operation of the entire state machinery, including the legislative, administrative, judicial agencies, police, and military, and enable the country to have the financial resources to provide society with public products such as education, sanitation, and infrastructure. or services. Taxpayers have the right to know how the money they handed over was spent, where it was spent, how much it was spent, how effective it was, whether it should be spent, and whether the supervision of the fiscal expenditure process is effective. Public servants have the obligation to report to the people When explaining the scale and structure of fiscal revenue, relevant projects and figures should be specific, detailed and accurate, and we are obliged to create public welfare rather than public harm. Only in this way, building a socialist political civilization is not an empty talk. Taxpayers have the right to demand civilized services from tax authorities and tax collection and administration personnel. Whether taxpayers have legal rights and what rights they have is one of the standards for measuring the degree of tax civilization in a country. Recognizing and safeguarding the rights of taxpayers is as much an obligation for tax authorities as tax collection in accordance with the law.

Reasons for the absence of “taxpayer awareness”: Slogans and slogans are unconvincing. First of all, they overemphasize the obligation to pay taxes and pay too much attention to the mandatory and free nature of taxation in publicity, while ignoring that taxpayers pay a certain amount of tax. The essence of buying public goods provided by the government. Today, when the awareness of market equivalent exchange has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, this can only cause taxpayers to resist paying taxes. For a long time, in the process of tax collection in our country, the obligations of taxpayers have been overemphasized, while the rights that taxpayers should enjoy have not been clearly stated. Although there is the principle that "socialist taxation is taken from the people and used for the people", the specific data of "used for the people" are often missing. How to obtain it, how to use it, and what are the immediate interests of taxpayers? Taxpayers don't know. Simple slogans such as "It is an honor to pay taxes in accordance with the law" obviously cannot convince taxpayers. Secondly, public officials lack "public servant consciousness", and the service spirit of civil servants in some national administrative agencies has become an obstacle to cultivating taxpayer awareness. Western citizens have a strong awareness of paying taxes. They know that they are taxpayers, and the money spent by the government is their own money, and they should serve themselves. The government also advertises itself as "serving taxpayers." However, the phenomenon of "difficult to enter, ugly faces, ugly words, and difficult things to do" occurs from time to time in a few government departments in our country. These "public servants" feel that the salary they receive is "national" and do not take taxpayers into consideration at all. Here, we have never regarded taxpayers as our bread and butter. It even appeared that the public security department in one place implemented "double regulations" even when taxpayers complained about their grievances and petitioned for complaints. Otherwise, public security penalties will be imposed. Civil servants are happy to spend taxpayers' money. They have many "conditions" when serving taxpayers and lack "public servant consciousness." Third, a few government agencies are profligate and wasteful. When people learned that hundreds of billions of public funds in our country are wasted and squandered every year, they became even more resistant to paying taxes. In 2007, Liu Mancang, a representative of the National People's Congress, exclaimed: "A civil servant consumes 19 days of electricity for one day, and ordinary people use it for 19 days." The figures mentioned by Liu Guangfu, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, were even more staggering: in 2006, government officials at all levels The private use of public buses amounted to more than 200 billion yuan, almost the same as the national defense expenditure in 2006. According to some estimates, many public buses are only used for official business for only 1/3 of the time, and the rest of the time is used for private matters of leaders and drivers. The resulting association is "we pay taxes and you enjoy". Fourth, problems existing in the enforcement of tax authorities are also important factors that hinder the formation of taxpayer awareness. Although the tax department's awareness of serving taxpayers is changing, and they also know that taxpayers have made contributions to the country and must provide taxpayers with good services, the implementation in actual work still feels lacking. In practice, many tax officials always have a strong "consciousness of power" and a "sense of self-superiority". They take their taxation as a matter of course and do not allow taxpayers to question it. They do not publicize and explain the provisions of laws and regulations to taxpayers, nor inform taxpayers. They do not have the rights they deserve, and they do not explain the specific tax calculation method, and they have a bad working attitude. In addition, when the tax conditions are the same but the tax amounts are different, law-abiding taxpayers will only feel that they are too stupid or too short-changed, and their awareness of the glory of paying taxes and their enthusiasm for conscious taxation will be seriously challenged. Strengthening "taxpayer awareness" should not be reduced to empty slogans, but should be given real connotations. The "taxpayer awareness" of politicians means that taxpayers have the right to know the collection and use of taxes; the right to make suggestions on the allocation and use of taxes; the right to supervise the allocation and use of taxes; the right to Criticism of improper use of tax revenue and spending that goes against the wishes of the majority of taxpayers. Although the "Two Sessions" at all levels at the beginning of each year also have the agenda of hearing and reviewing financial reports, it can be seen from the intensifying consumption of public funds and the inexhaustible "achievement projects" and "image projects" that taxpayers have The true enjoyment of these rights requires more institutional guarantees. Implement taxpayers' rights and use practical actions to cultivate citizens' "taxpayer awareness."