Strengthen the collection and management of consumption tax in luxury enterprises
Dong Mingzhu, deputy to the National People’s Congress and vice chairman and president of Gree Electric, who is attending the Fourth Session of the 11th National People’s Congress, recently formally submitted two proposals to the conference, calling for improving the recycling mechanism of used electrical appliances and strengthening the consumption tax collection and management of luxury goods enterprises.
Improve the recycling mechanism of waste electrical appliances
According to relevant statistics, at present, the number of TV sets, refrigerators, washing machines and air conditioners in China has reached 350 million, 130 million, 170 million and 120 million respectively. These household appliances began to enter the family in the middle and late 1980s, usually with a service life of 10 to 15 years. Since 2003, at least 5 million TV sets, 4 million refrigerators and 5 million washing machines have to be scrapped in China, and now it is growing geometrically. In addition, at present, there are nearly 20 million computers and 190 million mobile phones in China, and these two electronic products are updated much faster than household appliances. About 5 million computers and tens of millions of mobile phones have entered the elimination period every year. These waste household appliances contain a large number of scarce metal resources in China, which are essentially "urban mines" resources. If China can also attach importance to the development of these "urban mines", it will also be of great significance to the supply and guarantee of national resources.
At present, the main body of e-waste recycling in China is mostly self-employed, which mainly flows to the secondary market and carries out primary dismantling. The means are nothing more than "burning with fire" or "washing with water" (corroded by strong acids such as aqua regia), which not only fails to make full use of these precious resources, but also easily leads to secondary pollution, and pollution problems have already appeared in many places. This situation is unable to undertake the mission of developing "urban mines". If advanced disassembly and treatment technology is adopted, compared with the exploitation and smelting of natural mineral resources, the development of "urban mines" can greatly reduce energy consumption and "three wastes" emission, etc. Recycling and treating waste household appliances and electronic products has many advantages and characteristics: for example, it eliminates the harm to the environment while recycling a large number of useful metals and rare precious metals; Reduce the import of scrap metal from abroad and delay the development of natural mine resources; Save energy consumption, reduce environmental pressure, etc. It is difficult to deal with the electronic waste in cities, and it relies heavily on the new recycling technology, and the relevant regulations of the state are issued late, which leads to the high start-up capital investment in the development of "urban mines", which is one of the main reasons why "urban mines" have not been paid attention to for a long time and it is difficult to wake up after a long sleep.
In a sense, attaching importance to the development of "urban mines" is no less than the development of natural mine resources. Because the development of "urban mines" is more environmentally friendly, more ecological and more economical. Dong Mingzhu believes that on April 1st, 2010, the Technical Specification for Pollution Control of Waste Electrical and Electronic Products was issued and formally implemented, and on January 1st, 2011, the Regulations on the Management of Waste Electrical and Electronic Products Recycling (hereinafter referred to as the Regulations) and other supporting policies and measures were formally implemented. Although the promulgation and implementation of these regulations have greatly promoted the recycling of waste household appliances in China into the journey of environmental protection, they are still insufficient.
To this end, Dong Mingzhu suggested: First, the construction of laws, regulations and systems needs to be further improved. In recent years, although the waste electrical and electronic processing industry has developed rapidly, due to the late start of the industry, the requirements of relevant authorities on specific processing methods and standards have not been clear, resulting in a variety of processing technologies and equipment. Although the "Regulations" regulate the responsibilities of interested parties, it is a little too general and not very operational. The responsibilities of producers, wasters and recyclers of electronic and electrical products are not clearly defined in the Regulations. There is no mention of specific measures to cultivate national environmental awareness; The encouragement policy for production enterprises to participate in the treatment is not clear; The supervision and management measures are not refined, and the punishment is far from enough. If the above problems are not solved, it will make it difficult to standardize the recycling operation, and the situation of "regular army" and "guerrilla" is still impossible to change substantially.
Second, the establishment and improvement of the recycling system. How to subvert the current scattered and disorderly guerrilla traditional resource recovery model, and establish and improve a modern recovery system is the key link in the exploitation of urban mine resources. The recycling channel is not smooth, and it is difficult to concentrate a large number of discarded household appliances and electronic products, which leads to the formal dismantling enterprises "cooking without rice", while "guerrillas" and "small workshops" are booming. It is suggested that the government introduce mandatory policies for the recycling system, strengthen the responsibilities of the government, consumers, recyclers/producers and recycling fund management committees, vigorously implement resource recycling and waste reduction, and encourage the participation of the whole people through feedback, so as to establish and improve the recycling system.
Third, strengthen supervision and management. Up to now, most policies on "urban mines" are multi-door and multi-head management, which increases the difficulty of policy coordination. The recycling and harmless disposal of waste household appliances and electronic products involves many links such as product production, circulation, consumption, recovery, disassembly, recycling and final disposal, and involves more than 10 government administrative departments, and the policies of these administrative departments must be coordinated to promote the healthy development of waste recycling industry. Therefore, in order to effectively improve the current situation that supervision is not in place, it is suggested that the government set up a special management department to be fully responsible for managing the whole process of recycling waste household appliances and electronic products, so as to prevent the disorderly situation of "Jiulong Water Control".
Strengthen the collection and management of consumption tax in luxury enterprises
According to statistics, at present, China has become an important market for luxury consumption in the world, including not only luxury goods such as luxury cars, but also daily consumer goods such as business jets and yachts for some rich people in China. Of course, this also proves from one side that China’s economy is growing stronger and stronger. However, we should pay attention to the tax problem of luxury consumption, which is not only about the seriousness of tax law implementation, but also about the fairness and justice of income distribution.
In 2003, the total personal income tax revenue in China was 141.8 billion yuan, accounting for 6.5% of the total national tax revenue from 1.4% in 1994. However, until 2010, the personal income tax accounted for 6.6% of the national tax revenue, which shows that the proportion of individual income tax has not increased with the increase of the income of high-income groups. The key reason is that the rich don’t really pay taxes according to their income. "High-income earners pay more taxes" doesn’t mean "rich people pay more taxes". The high-income earners mentioned here are mainly wage earners.
At present, many bosses of private enterprises only give themselves a symbolic salary, and their luxury consumption, such as airplanes, yachts, luxury cars, high-end clubs, etc., are all purchased and paid in the name of enterprises, all of which are made into "expense costs" from accounting. Operating through enterprises not only evades personal income tax, but also deducts corporate income tax. Article 8 of the Enterprise Income Tax Law stipulates that "reasonable expenses actually incurred by an enterprise related to income, including costs, expenses, taxes, losses and other expenses, are allowed to be deducted when calculating taxable income", and Article 11 stipulates that "depreciation deduction is not allowed for the following fixed assets: fixed assets unrelated to business activities". Therefore, according to the provisions of the tax law, personal and family expenses, consumption of business owners and depreciation of fixed assets purchased for personal consumption are not allowed before tax.
In this regard, Dong Mingzhu said that the state can stop the "reasonable tax avoidance" of some business owners through the collection of consumption tax of luxury enterprises. She suggested that with reference to the management standards of state-owned enterprises, unified management standards and norms should be introduced for all enterprises, and a step-by-step tax rate should be imposed on some enterprises’ consumption exceeding the standard.