俄罗斯税制改革的政治影响分析

普京上台伊始,即把发展经济、建立强大的国家确定为俄联邦的首要任务。普京认为,使俄罗斯失去其国际强势地位和独立性的很大原因是国家税收乏力,因此俄罗斯当务之急是尽快改革原有的税制结构和税收制度①。在普京的大力推动下,俄罗斯进行了大规模税制改革。以简化税制、减少税种、降低税率、减轻税负为核心的税制改革取得了很大成功,使俄罗斯“成为一个建立了良好税收制度的国家”。在此基础上,普京提出了进一步深化税改,在今后两年内全面完成税收改革的新的奋斗目标。     

税务行政中的契约理念及其体现——以平等、协商为核心

税收的本质是人民与国家间的“契约”,而契约所蕴涵的平等、协商等理念正是我国当代税务行政中的稀缺品质。平等理念拓展了长期局限于纳税人间的传统平等观,将平等延伸至税务机关,重视实质平等。协商理念蕴涵双向交流与沟通之意,体现了对行政相对人意志表达的尊重倾向,也将为单一的权力行政手段增添活力与弹性。平等、协商理念对于提升纳税人主体地位、增进税收公平、改善征纳关系、实现高效行政都颇具现实意义。     

Rethinking the medical causes of infant death in early modern Europe: a closer look at church registers and medical terminology

The historical roots of the prevailing hypothesis about the main causes of high infant mortality in Europe in the last four centuries are presented in detail focusing on German sources and publications. Assumptions about infections being the main cause of deaths during infancy clearly need to be reevaluated. The terminology of early sources has passed many steps of translation and interpretation. In the old church registers, wording in the local vernacular merely described the most visible symptoms before the final stages of diseases. Scientific medicine and its terminology repeatedly went astray before real pediatric competence was acquired in the nutritional physiology of infants. The combination of different kinds of evidence points to serious flaws in the prevailing hypothesis, while source data and publications confirm a different conclusion: inadequate nutrition due to early weaning and unsuitable substitute food caused the specific set of symptoms described in the historical sources. Medical evidence about infant malnutrition in developing countries supports this new interpretation.     

The grapes of rent: A history of renting in a country of owners

Abstract

In a recent study of neighborhood development, Goetz and Sidney (1994) found an “ideology of property” separating the interests of homeowners from the interests of lower‐income tenants. According to this ideology, owners are better citizens than renters, and therefore public policy should benefit owners at the expense of renters. In spite of continuing research that shows this allegation to be false, a widespread bias against renters persists. Why is this so?

A deliberate bias favoring property owners and harming renters has been prominent in American public policy from colonial times to the present, although its exact form has varied over time—property requirements for suffrage, land redistribution schemes promising ownership but delivering tenancy and poverty, and tax policies that privilege ownership and punish tenancy. Public policy that stigmatizes renters represents a bias as pernicious as other biases of gender, race, religion, and nationality.     

Comment on Jean L. Cummings and Denise DiPasquale's “The Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit: An Analysis of the First Ten Years”

Abstract

The Low‐Income Housing Tax Credit (housing credit) that Cummings and Di‐Pasquale portray is effective, efficient, and healthy. However, rapid changes in the industry have turned some of their data stale, and the absence of suitable context and information invalidate some key analyses and findings. Moreover, the researchers sometimes seem to see the glass as 10 percent empty instead of 90 percent full. A practitioners’ perspective is more positive.

The housing credit generates an array of public benefits while harnessing private investors’ business discipline. Genuinely low‐income tenants occupy the housing. The housing revitalizes low‐income communities. Properties are in good financial and physical condition. The housing credit is also cost effective. The economic fundamentals of producing low‐income rental housing, not the housing credit, necessitate substantial subsidies. A remarkably high proportion of the federal tax‐credit subsidy goes into the housing, and investor returns are modest. Nonprofit‐sponsored production appears to cost more because nonprofits are prominent in high‐cost locations and for other similar reasons, not because nonprofit developers are inefficient.     

The functioning and regulation of escrow accounts

Abstract

About 40 million Americans have mortgages serviced by escrow accounts. Yet escrow accounts are rarely covered by an explicit agreement between borrower and lender and are often poorly understood. As a result, escrow accounts have become the subject of growing controversy. Federal regulation of escrow accounts has become increasingly detailed and intrusive during the past two decades, and the subject is under almost continuous regulatory review. In the 1990s, the attorneys general of at least 10 states have sued large escrow account servicers over administration of accounts.

The purposes of this article are to explain briefly how escrow accounts work, benefit relevant parties, and are regulated by federal agencies, and to evaluate alternative regulatory programs. Most of the legitimate social goals of federal regulation could be achieved by requiring an explicit escrow agreement at the time of closing on a mortgage. A second‐best requirement would be that interest be paid on escrow balances.     

Introduction to session 3: Estimating the costs: Perspectives on preservation of the nation's lower‐income housing stock

Abstract

This article uses survey data from the Moving to Opportunity demonstration program in Chicago to explore changes for households moving from public housing. The focus is on two key areas: housing and neighborhood conditions, and labor force participation and employment of householders. The experimental design of the program allows the differences between comparison households, which moved with a regular Section 8 voucher, and experimental households, which moved to low‐poverty neighborhoods with housing counseling assistance, to be examined.

The findings, based on interviews an average of 18 months after families moved, reveal dramatic improvements in neighborhood and housing conditions for all participating families; experimental families experienced even greater gains in terms of housing and especially neighborhood conditions. Labor force participation and employment increased for householders in both groups, likely fueled by the robust economy throughout much of the country and supporting similar findings for program participants in New York and Boston.     

Comment on Jack Goodman's “houses,apartments, and the incidence of property taxes”

Abstract

Goodman finds from his analysis of the 2001 Residential Finance Survey that multifamily housing bears a higher effective property tax rate (EPTR) than single‐family owner‐occupied housing and argues that much of the differential is associated with the lower average property value of apartments. We offer comments on how this important research can be enhanced and analyze the EPTR by using a different database, the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) of the decennial census.

Like Goodman, we find from the PUMS that the EPTR of multifamily housing is high relative to that of single‐family detached housing and that lower‐value multifamily housing has a higher EPTR relative to that of higher‐value multifamily units. We offer preliminary findings from the PUMS on the implications of the EPTR for development patterns (it may discourage smart growth), equity (the poor and minorities bear a higher tax burden), and housing (high EPTRs challenge affordability).     

企业税收筹划法律风险的若干基础理论问题探析

目前,企业税收筹划理论和实践中存在着一定程度的概念混淆,使得许多避税策划甚至是偷逃税的手段被冠之以税收筹划。为避免税收筹划法律风险,有必要对税收筹划等基本概念进行澄清。宜将税收筹划界定为区别于偷税与避税而具有特定内涵的概念,从而构建一个与税收筹划相关且逻辑自洽的概念体系,并在此基础上探明税收筹划法律风险的内涵。     

从税权划分看我国地方税制立法体系的完善

税权划分规范与否,关系到中央和地方两级税制体系能否规范建立和有效运行。针对我国税收立法权高度集中于中央、税收征管权交叉重叠等税收权划分问题,本文比较国际上通行的三种税权划分模式,认为我国应选择“合理集权、适度分权”的分权模式。并指出赋予地方适度税收立法权、合理调整税种归属及其征管权、完善转移支付制度是当前规范我国税权划分、重新架构地方税制体系的具体政策选择。