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盛松成:地方发展模式何以重投资轻消费?如何改变?|宏观经济
清华金融评论·2025-08-07 11:41

Core Viewpoint - The article emphasizes the importance of boosting consumption as a key strategy for expanding domestic demand, highlighting its priority in the government's work report for the year [2]. Group 1: Challenges in Boosting Consumption - Increasing investment is more controllable for local economies, while boosting consumption requires market cooperation, especially when consumer spending is weak [3]. - Local governments face significant financial constraints due to accumulated debt and a downturn in the real estate market, which affects the implementation of consumption-boosting policies [3]. - The current fiscal and tax system may hinder the potential for consumption growth, necessitating reforms to create a positive incentive mechanism for local governments [5][6]. Group 2: Tax Structure and Consumption Potential - The main tax sources in China include value-added tax (VAT), corporate income tax, consumption tax, and personal income tax, with VAT contributing the most to local revenue [3]. - In 2024, China's total tax revenue is projected to be 17.5 trillion yuan, with VAT at 6.67 trillion yuan (38% of total revenue) and consumption tax at 1.65 trillion yuan (9% of total revenue) [3]. - The current VAT distribution mechanism, based on the production location, is becoming increasingly inadequate as consumption becomes the main growth driver [6][7]. Group 3: International Experience and Recommendations - The article suggests learning from international experiences, such as the EU's shift from production-based to consumption-based VAT distribution, to optimize China's VAT system [10][12]. - Recommendations include improving the precision of transfer payments to consumption areas and accelerating the shift of consumption tax collection to promote new consumption sectors [4][12]. - The U.S. sales tax system offers insights into using differentiated tax rates to guide consumer behavior and linking consumption taxes to public services [13][15]. Group 4: Proposed Reforms - Optimizing the VAT distribution mechanism should focus on more precise compensation for consumption areas, potentially trialing a combined production and consumption-based distribution rule [16]. - The consumption tax structure should be optimized to encourage healthy and green consumption, with differentiated rates for various products [17]. - Enhancing the linkage and integration of tax types can help streamline tax collection and reduce the burden on consumers, promoting overall consumption growth [18].