A Study of the Value Added Tax Reform in China

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the recent situation of the VAT system in China, including its problems as well as reforming trends within it, in order to provide promising further research paradigms. The research methods adopted exploratory studies to find out the major problems of the VAT system. To clearly describe the problems, statistical analyses are performed and quantitative data is used to supplement the qualitative analysis. Moreover, to discuss the problems of the Chinese VAT system, this paper compares the Chinese VAT system with other countries, especially Taiwan, in order to give a detailed description of its problems. The results of this study show that the Chinese government only concentrates on how much revenue it can collect but ignores tax equity and tax neutrality as well as low income groups. The conclusions of this study show that the problems of the imperfect VAT system and the changing economic conditions of China have resulted in double taxation, an unfair tax burden, an unreasonable threshold, complex VAT rates, and a gradual worsening of local fiscal conditions. In comparisons between GDP growth and VAT revenue growth, VAT revenue growth exceeded the GDP growth. One of the major reasons is rapid economic growth. Other reasons are that price indices increase every year and, also, China adopts gross income-type VAT which results in double tax on capital investment. Another probable reason is an increased effectivity and efficiency of China’s tax administration. Analysis of these problems shows that the Chinese government needs to improve not only its VAT system but also the taxation system and its fiscal system