By Feng Qiaobin & Li Chengjian, Research Team on “Modernization-Oriented Government Revenue System”, Department of Macroeconomic Research, DRC

Research Report, No.205, 2020 (Total 5949) 2020-8-18

Abstract: General government revenue refers to the gross sum of revenues collected from four categories of sources including taxes, governmental fees, rent from the lease of state-owned capital (resources) and prices. And government revenue systems of all countries in the world are the mix of these categories mentioned above. At present, China’s budgets for general public needs, government funds, state-owned capital operation and social security fund have all taken the four forms of categories, leading regretfully to indistinct structures and unbalanced proportion in the existing government revenue system. In the framework of modern fiscal and taxation system, China’s government revenue system needs to adopt the layout with taxation serving as the mainstay and taking up about 70%, government fees as the supporting part, state-owned capital (resources) as the coordinating part and social security income as the special part. To deepen the reform on government revenue system, work needs to be done to bring the total burden on society under control through the arrangement of institutional innovation. In the meantime, the existing government revenue system needs to be sorted out in line with the classification of taxes, fees, rent and prices so as to enable them to display their respective functions and get regulated in an orderly manner. In this way, a modern government revenue system will be reshaped with the four categories not only maintaining their respective features but also supporting each other.

Keywords: government revenue, system reorganization, structural optimization