China Tax Reform And Wto Accession Project

The chapter on tax administration and legislative principles addresses the basic concepts that need to be observed in designing effective, equitable and efficient tax reform. The use of taxation as a policy tool and rights and obligations of taxpayers are also dealt with. The chapter on individual income tax provides a conceptual overview of a modern individual income tax system that the authors recommend as the longer-term framework for China's short and medium-term decisions on tax reforms. The chapter on enterprise income tax, taking into account China's intention to modernize the enterprise income tax system and replace the two current laws on enterprise tax with one law, discusses the building blocks of a modern system. The chapter on VAT and business tax develops a VAT design against the background of VAT models and sources of VAT law in other countries and addresses the desirability of VAT and business tax being merged. The chapter on China's WTO accession and tax reform discusses China's WTO-related obligations in the area of taxation.

Grounded on a series of first-hand interviews with Chinese government officials, this book examines China's accession to the World Trade Organization, providing an 'inside' look at Chinese WTO accession negotiations. Presenting a systematic political economy model in analyzing Beijing's decision-making mechanisms, the book argues that China's WTO policy making is a state-led, leadership driven, and top-down process. Feng explores how China's determined political elite partly bypassed and partly restructured a largely reluctant and resistant bureaucracy, under constant pressure from an increasingly globalized international system. By addressing China's accession to the WTO from a political analysis perspective, the book provides a theoretically informed and intriguing examination of China's foreign economic policy making regime. The book highlights contemporary debates relating to state and institutionalist theory and provides new and useful insights into a significant development of this century.

This book explores the ill-defined and oft-underestimated relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and taxation. By adopting a two-pronged approach, the relationship is examined in terms of the extent to which the WTO legal framework exerts influence upon domestic tax law and international tax policy, and whether it is appropriate for the WTO to play a regulatory role in the field of taxation. The book begins with an examination of the historical development of international trade law and international tax law, and demonstrates that these two separate areas of law are closely linked in terms of their underlying principles and historical evolution. The work then goes on to offer a doctrinal analysis of the tax content found in the WTO legal texts and highlights ambiguities therein.

In less than three decades, China has grown from playing a negligible role in international trade to being one of the world's largest exporters, a substantial importer of raw materials, intermediate outputs, and other goods, and both a recipient and source of foreign investment. Not surprisingly, China's economic dynamism has generated considerable attention and concern in the United States and beyond. While some analysts have warned of the potential pitfalls of China's rise—the loss of jobs, for example—others have highlighted the benefits of new market and investment opportunities for US firms. Bringing together an expert group of contributors, China's Growing Role in World Trade undertakes an empirical investigation of the effects of China's new status. The essays collected here provide detailed analyses of the microstructure of trade, the macroeconomic implications, sector-level issues, and foreign direct investment. This volume's careful examination of micro data in light of established economic theories clarifies a number of misconceptions, disproves some conventional wisdom, and documents data patterns that enhance our understanding of China's trade and what it may mean to the rest of the world.

China's accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2001 was a highly significant event both for China and for the wider world. This book argues that, although at the time some people doubted the likely benefits, China's WTO accession has been highly successful. It discusses how China has abided by its commitment to WTO terms and how WTO membership has contributed to China's reform and opening up; explores how vastly increased co-operative exchange with many countries around the world has been mutually beneficial in a range of fields including trade, science and culture; and shows how China's WTO membership has been a great stimulus both for China's economy and the world economy. The book considers the subject from a number of perspectives, and draws out lessons for future reform and development for China, and for China's relations with the rest of the world, emphasising the need to maintain a win-win approach.

Nine papers by various authors discussing aspects of economic reform in China over a 20 year period.

China, the world's sixth largest economy, has recently joined the rules-based international trading system. What are the implications of this accession? Leading scholars and practitioners from the US, Europe, China, Australia and Japan argue that China's membership will affect the WTO's decision-making, dispute resolution and rule-based structures. It will also spur legal and economic reform, have far-reaching social, political and distributional consequences in China, facilitate a new role for China in international geo-political affairs, and alter the shape, structure and content of the international trading system as a whole. Of interest to scholars of China, as well as trade lawyers and economists.