"Tax is taken from the people" embodies the right of the government to tax taxpayers, and accordingly, taxpayers need to bear the obligation to pay taxes. Many countries clearly stipulate in their constitutions that taxpayers should pay taxes. Article 56 of China's Constitution stipulates: "The people of China and citizens of China have the obligation to pay taxes in accordance with the law." The basic obligation of citizens to pay taxes according to law is determined in the form of fundamental law, and it is unconditional for taxpayers to bear the tax obligation.
From the perspective of legal philosophy, the rights and obligations of citizens and the powers and responsibilities of the government are contradictory aspects. Obligation is the basis of rights, and responsibility is the condition of power, which cannot be discussed separately. The government collects taxes to maintain the normal operation of the state machine. The emergence and existence of a country is because it can perform various economic, social and political functions needed by society. According to the theory of public goods, the essence of the state machine to perform various functions is to provide the so-called "public goods" that taxpayers need, but taxpayers themselves cannot, are unwilling or cannot provide them through the market. Public goods that the market cannot provide, such as social security; Unwilling to provide economic external effects for public facilities such as flood control; Not allowed, such as national defense, diplomacy and so on. That is to say, from the government's point of view, it can have the right to tax, because it can provide domestic taxpayers with the public goods they need, and taxation is the compensation for the cost of providing public goods; From the taxpayer's point of view, he is willing to pay taxes in exchange for public goods provided by the government. It can be seen that the relationship between the government and taxpayers is not only the relationship between tax collection and payment, but also the relationship between the provision and consumption of public goods. The combination of the two makes the rights and obligations of both parties roughly the same. It's just that they don't happen at the same time, but they are out of touch or dislocation in time and place, and the number of individuals is not equal (that is, the quantity and quality of products enjoyed by the public are not necessarily proportional to the taxes paid). "Tax is taken from the people" only reflects the tax collection and management relationship between the government and taxpayers, while the relationship between the provision and consumption of public goods is reflected in "tax is used by the people", that is, "tax is taken from the people" reflects the capital flow of taxpayers to the government, and "tax is used by the people" reflects the service flow of government providing public goods to taxpayers.
It can be seen that "taking from the people" and "using for the people" are inseparable, otherwise, the relationship between the rights and obligations of the government and taxpayers will be broken and in an unstable state. But in comparison, "using it for the people" may be more important, because government taxation is only a means to provide public goods with taxes.
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From the analysis of the basis of taxation and the rights and obligations between the government and taxpayers, it can be seen that "tax is taken from the people and used by the people" is a common feature of tax development in the process of market economy development, and it is not unique to China. In fact, in western developed countries, the balance of rights and obligations between the government and taxpayers has long been recognized, and on this basis, it is further proposed that in order to maintain the stability and health of this relationship of rights and obligations, that is, to ensure that the government can reasonably collect taxes and effectively provide public products, it is necessary to emphasize the protection of taxpayers' rights. Especially since the 1980s, the United States, Canada, Germany, Britain and other western developed countries have formulated and implemented similar laws or administrative regulations to protect taxpayers' rights, such as the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, the Taxpayer's Charter and the Taxpayer's Declaration. This is because, on the one hand, in the relationship between the rights and obligations of the government and taxpayers, taxpayers, as individuals, are in a weak position compared with the government, and their rights are easily violated by the government, so it is necessary to limit and prevent the government from abusing its power. On the other hand, since the taxpayer's tax obligation is a kind of interest transfer for the government to provide public goods, then the taxpayer should have the right to decide how much interest he is willing to transfer (that is, how much tax obligation he is willing to bear), not just to manage the government, but also to monitor the efficiency and quality of the government's use of taxes and the provision of public goods. Therefore, in the link of tax collection (the link of "taking from the people"), the government advocates the concepts of "tax collection must obtain the consent of taxpayers" and "no tax collection without representatives", emphasizing the taxpayer's "tax consent right"; In the specific process of tax collection, it is necessary to strengthen the protection of taxpayers' interests in terms of legal compliance, such as taxpayers' right to obtain tax information and the right to keep information confidential. For tax authorities, we should advocate the concept of serving taxpayers. For example, the United States Federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS) clearly wrote in its job responsibilities: "The purpose of IRS is to provide taxpayers with high-quality services, help taxpayers understand and fulfill their tax obligations, and enforce the law openly and fairly for all taxpayers." In the link of tax use and service provision, the "tax supervision right" is emphasized. There are two ways to restrict the government's tax power: one is to standardize the tax legislative procedure, that is, the implementation of the tax law must be discussed and passed by the parliament representing the interests of taxpayers; The second is to directly restrict some taxation rights of the government through laws. For example, the Taxpayer's Rights Act in Colorado, USA, has limited the super-economic growth of tax revenue. The government's restrictions on the use of taxes are mainly reflected in ebb's supervision of the budget. However, this kind of restriction of government power by protecting taxpayers' tax consent and tax supervision needs to increase the transparency of government behavior, especially the timeliness and integrity of government disclosure of relevant information. In our words, "take it from the people and use it for the people" must be based on the premise of "take it from the people and use it for the people".
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In our country, "take it from the people and use it for the people" is the basic feature of socialist taxation, which has long been put forward. China's Constitution stipulates that "all power of the people and the state of China belongs to the people". The people can decide and supervise the state's right to levy taxes and use them. However, in the planned economy period and the initial stage of economic transition, due to insufficient understanding, imperfect legal system and weak law enforcement environment, the tax concept of "taking from the people and using it for the people" has not been actually understood and practiced from the perspective of the relationship between the rights and obligations of the government and taxpayers and the protection of taxpayers' rights, but largely stayed at the slogan level. With the development of China's reform and opening up and market economy, different market stakeholders have been established, especially since 1999 wrote the content of "China people * * * and People's Republic of China (PRC) governing the country according to law" into the Constitution, the legal system has been gradually improved, and the law enforcement environment has become increasingly sound, thus adding new connotations to the tax concept of "taking from the people and using it for the people": First, the promulgation and implementation of China's legislative law is for Secondly, the revision and improvement of the tax collection and management law, especially the rich content of taxpayer rights protection, has laid a legal foundation for the protection of taxpayer rights. Thirdly, in the practice of taxation, the establishment of the concept of optimizing service and the implementation of relevant systems for the protection of taxpayers' rights provide an operating environment for the protection of taxpayers' rights. For example, holding a hearing on the adjustment of personal income tax deduction standards for wages and salaries is a major breakthrough in widely absorbing taxpayers' opinions and allowing taxpayers to directly participate in tax policy formulation. Fourth, the promulgation and implementation of the budget law is conducive to the legal supervision of budget implementation. Especially in the context of the rapid growth of tax revenue in recent years, the financial expenditure has been increasing continuously, in order to "reduce general expenditure and tilt to the weak links of social development such as rural areas, education, employment, social security and public health", which is undoubtedly conducive to improving the level and quality of public goods provided by the government.