Rural Tax Research Articles

China: Rural Taxation and Government Regulations

China: Rural Taxation and Government Regulations

Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China. By Thomas P. Bernstein and Xiaobo Lü. [Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. xviii+282 pp. £50.00; $70.00. ISBN 0-521-81318-2.

Bernstein and Lü present a powerful argument that the problem of “peasant burdens” cannot be resolved unless rural taxpayers are included as fully-fledged polity members whose interests are represented in both policy making and policy implementation. They do so by addressing two important puzzles. In chapters two to four, the authors examine the paradoxical combination of light central taxation and onerous local extraction that has haunted rural China for centuries. They attribute this problem to two major institutional tensions. One is that Chinese peasants remain essentially subjects without political rights vis-à-vis the state (p. 38); the other is that subordinates in the bureaucracy have no right to disagree and negotiate with their superiors (pp. 41–42, 91–95). The authors show that these long-standing facts of life induce local officials to increase levies and taxes while the central state works hard but often fruitlessly to contain these same burdens (p. 90, pp. 109–114). In the end, all three parties involved in rural taxation lose out. The centre suffers because the public loses confidence in its ability to control local officials (pp. 51–56); local officials see their popular support drain away when they try to meet their “unfunded mandates,” such as compulsory basic education (p. 56, p. 88); peasants, especially the poorer ones, lose most, as they not only lose a substantial portion of their income but are also often bullied or subjected to physical force by enforcers of unlawful extraction (pp. 60–61; 78–80).

Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Uganda

Uganda has put in place a comprehensive framework for poverty reduction known as the poverty eradication action plan (PEAP). A subcomponent of the PEAP, the plan for the modernization of agriculture (PMA) is designed to address the goal of reducing poverty in rural areas. This paper utilizes research on rural livelihoods in three rural districts to derive policy inferences relevant to this framework. Research findings show that rural poverty is strongly associated with lack of land and livestock, as well as inability to secure nonfarm alternatives to diminishing farm opportunities. Meanwhile rural families encounter a rural taxation regime associated with fiscal decentralization that is basically inimical to the expansion of monetary opportunities in rural areas. A fundamental contradiction between the goals of PEAP/PMA and decentralized rural taxation is revealed.

The Political Economy of Uneven Development: The Case of China. Wang Shaoguang , Hu Angang

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsThe Political Economy of Uneven Development: The Case of China. Wang Shaoguang , Hu Angang Lance L. P. GoreLance L. P. Gore Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The China Journal Volume 44Jul., 2000 Published on behalf of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2667497 Views: 17Total views on this site Citations: 4Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright The China JournalPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jeffrey S. Zax Provincial Valuations of Human Capital in Urban China, Inter-provincial Inequality and the Implicit Value of a Guangdong Hukou, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2019).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3362648Wen Wang, Zhirong Jerry Zhao Rural Taxation Reforms and Compulsory Education Finance in China, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2010).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1669908Derek C. Jones, Cheng Li, Ann L. Owen Growth and Regional Inequality in China During the Reform Era, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2003).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.405843Sylvie Demurger, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Wing Thye Woo, Shu Ming Bao, Gene Hsin Chang, Andrew D. Mellinger Geography, Economic Policy and Regional Development in China, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2001).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.286672

Rural taxation in Ethiopia, 1981–1989: a policy analysis matrix assessment for net producers and net consumers

During the period of socialist rule (1974–1991), Ethiopian agriculture was subject to an array of policy interventions. This paper uses a policy analysis matrix (PAM) approach to determine the effects of various policies on different types of households and in aggregate. The analysis extends the usual use of PAMs by including consumption requirements and by addressing the variation in the impact of specific policies through time. Household models are used to quantify the effects of government intervention on both net consumers and net producers of cereals. The analysis reveals that although cereal purchases were sometimes subsidized through overvaluation, cereal-deficit households paid high prices because of market segmentation and experienced reduced incomes due to exchange rate distortions. Households that tended to be surplus faced substantial indirect taxes through low producer prices. Results suggest that undistorted markets could enable many farms to accumulate sufficient reserves to cope with production variations, but farms with average land availabilities are not sustainable given current technologies, even with efficient commodity markets.

Government fiscal policy in mandatory Palestine in the 1930s

The fiscal system of Palestine under Ottoman rule was divided into two: the autonomous Sanjaq, or District of Jerusalem, came under the direct control of the Ministry of Finance at Constantinople, whilst the Sanjaqs of Acre and Nablus were administered from Beirut.' There were three direct rural taxes: the Werko, the Tithe, and the Animal Tax. The Werko rate was 4 per mille of the capital value of Miri, or State Land, as it had been assessed 25 years previously; the Tithe was collected at 12.5 per cent rather than 10 per cent on the gross yield of the land; and the Animal Tax was a tax per head of sheep, goat or pig, and those camels and buffaloes not used for ploughing.2 With time, large estates had been formed in Ottoman Palestine through the farming out of tax-collection. Here, the collection of tax especially meant the 'ushr tax, or the yearly tithe due on agricultural land.3 Taxcollection was farmed out for short periods in exchange for large payments to the government. The 12.5 per cent tithe of gross yield was a heavy burden for the peasantry as it translated to approximately 35 per cent of the net yield which rarely exceeded the minimum subsistence needs of the fellah,4 who was already at the mercy of the tax-collector. Partly to cover his own costs, and partly to make a gain, the multazim, or tax-collector, often exacted over half of the peasant's produce and so:

Viability of a rural land tax in South Africa

Although South African landowners have been subject to various forms of land tax in the past, the ownership (or occupation) of agricultural land is not taxed at present. Despite the fact that white agricultural landowners are strongly opposed to the possible introduction of a rural land tax, political and fiscal pressures in present‐day South Africa seem to suggest that the imposition of such a tax is inevitable. It is suggested that it could be equitable, and would be administratively feasible, to levy, assess and collect a rural land tax at local government level within the commercial farming sub‐sector, but that levying such a tax on subsistence farmers occupying communal land poses serious problems.

Leviathan in a dual economy

This paper studies the policies of a leviathan state with an ambition to make money and to stay in power. The economic framework is a developing country characterized by dual markets. Government revenue is raised by taxing the agricultural sector. Part of this revenue is offered to the politically influential urban population in the form of low productive but well paid public sector employment. I calculate the optimal level of rural taxation from the point of view of the Leviathan and investigate its effects on migration, industrialization, public sector employment and urban unemployment in different political scenarios.

The Economics of rural organization: theory, practice, and policy

Why have some rural development policies succeeded and others failed? The book sheds light on that question by defining a new branch of economics that explores economic relations in the rural sector of developing countries. The editors contend that the problems of imperfect information and missing markets are especially acute in poor, agrarian societies, and that to remedy market failures, one must understand their origins. The book thus explains the economic institutions, contractual arrangements, and technological constraints found in rural land, labor, and credit markets. It not only contributes new empirical evidence and expands economic theory, it also provides fresh insights for agricultural policymaking and institutional reform. Drawing together recent theoretical work, case studies, and historical research, it addresses some of the most pressing problems facing developing countries: how to promote financial integration of the rural sector, how to rationalize the use of land and water, and how to design and administer rural tax and transfer policies.

Ottoman Political Reform in the Provinces: The Damascus Advisory Council in 1844–45

The year 1844–45 in Damascus province was a dry one, aggravated by a brutal winter frost. Reports of ruined crops and disputes over precious water sources reached the city, where as yet there was still enough to eat. But the city was by no means immune to the drought. It was felt in varying ways, like rising prices and, of all things, a shortage of leeches. Barbers could not get enough of them to meet medical needs, and their prices had risen sharply. So the barbers began smuggling them. An Ottoman market official (mültazim), on noticing that government leech sales for that month had dropped from 45,000 to 7,000, ordered police (tüfenkçi) to confiscate the creatures from barbershops and sold them himself for profit. Conflict between the official and barbers exploded, and each side made its way, as rural peasants and tax collectors had in the crisis, to the ultimate court of appeal in the province, theMajlis Shūrā al-Shām al-ʿAlī, or high advisory council for Damascus province.

Assessed taxes as sources for the study of urban wealth: Bristol in the later eighteenth century

Little is known of the value of eighteenth-century rates and taxes as sources for the urban historian. Corfield, in her study of eighteenth-century Norwich, stated in 1976 that ‘the stereotyped nature of eighteenth-century tax assessments precludes use of fiscal data from national sources’ and this is a fair reflection of the then and to some extent the current orthodoxy, despite Rudé's pioneering studies of the 1960s in which he used land tax and poor rate returns to estimate the wealth of the electorate of Hanoverian London and Middlesex. Schwarz, in a study of late-eighteenth-century London, could still comment in 1979 that for eighteenth-century rates and taxes ‘little is known beyond general impressions’. Recently, however, Wright has thrown interesting light on the use of the Easter books and poor rates of early-modern towns and cities, and the 1986 volume on the land tax edited by Turner and Mills, although still largely concerned with the use of rural land tax assessments, includes three chapters on the value of the assessments in urban and industrial history. The writers hope that city rate and national tax returns might play a fuller role as historical sources, but their optimism is tempered with caution because of the returns' intractability and inconsistency. It is hoped here to reinforce both their enthusiasm and their caution, to reveal additional pitfalls and suggest ways to avoid them and in particular to extend the debate to the neglected pre-1780 assessments and to the city of Bristol.

Differential impacts of use value taxation on local property tax bases over time

A method for measuring the relative impacts of an agricultural use value tax program on local tax bases is developed and applied to the case of Hawaii. A simulation model is used to reconstruct local tax bases without the program. The model design takes into account the cumulative growth effects of foregone tax bases over time. The rationale for proper accounting of these foregone growth effects is strengthened by the tendency of tax capitalization effects to lessen the impacts and ultimate transfer effects. The relative impacts of the program on SMSA and rural tax bases are measured by comparing effective tax rates with vs. without the program. The relative impacts have been minor over the first decade of the programless than 0.10% for the SMSA and up to about 1.3% for the rural counties. For the future, even with a recently expanded program, the ultimate transfer effects will tend to be moderated by economic growth and capitalization effects. This moderating tendency is stronger for the SMSA, where there may be greater justification for use value taxation, than for rural counties.

Rural Appraisal and Taxation

Rural Appraisal and Taxation

Rural Tax Concessions: Resource Allocation or Political Patronage?

Rural Tax Concessions: Resource Allocation or Political Patronage?

Rural taxation and its contribution to development

Rural taxation and its contribution to development

Rural Taxation in Thailand

THE THAI ECONOMY has recorded impressive progress in the past decade. During the period from I958 to i962, the gross domestic product at constant prices grew at an average rate of 6.5 per cent per annum. From i962 to i968, this rate of growth accelerated to an average slightly above 8 per cent per annum. Despite this strong overall performance, there remain certain unsatisfactory aspects of the pattern of development. Perhaps foremost among these has been the degree to which economic gains have failed to find adequate reflection in the rural areas of the country. Sharp differences persist between the standards of living in rural and urban areas (most notably the metropolitan center of Bangkok-Thonburi).' In this article, the Thai system of taxing the agricultural sector is analyzed to isolate its effect on rural development. The first part describes the system of rural taxation; this is followed by an analysis of its effect on rural development; and the article concludes with a consideration of policy alternatives. Under the present system, the burden of taxation on the rural community in Thailand may be divided into three categories: a direct tax burden in the form of the local (land) development tax;2 a hidden tax burden in the form of the rice premium-an export tax on the main product of Thai agriculture;3 and a share of all other indirect taxes such as sales taxes and import duties. In the eyes of the farmer, the local development tax represents his major tax payment. The burden of this direct taxation is rather light; in i966 it was only about five baht4 per person

Cadasters and Censuses of Muscovy

In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Muscovy direct taxes were levied on the basis of periodic fiscal surveys. The records of these surveys were called soshnye pis'ma, pistsovye knigi, and perepisnye knigi (sokha registers, cadastral books, and census books respectively). Extant copies, though often fragmentary and considerably fewer than the total number of books originally compiled, represent our best source of information about the socio-economic history and population of Muscovy. Statistical data from these books span the period from the 1480s to 1717 and bear directly on such problems as population size and movement, identification of topographic features, the social and economic composition of urban and rural society, taxation, trade and manufacture, and the peasant economy on church, private, and state lands. Two of the most useful kinds of information are the enumeration of the taxed population, in terms of households and male occupants, and the quantitative and qualitative description of taxable property.

Rural taxation in the USSR

Rural taxation in the USSR

Trend in Rural Tax Delinquency in Wisconsin

Trend in Rural Tax Delinquency in Wisconsin

Some Aspects of Rural Land Tax Delinquency in Missouri

Some Aspects of Rural Land Tax Delinquency in Missouri