Chapter 15 "There is no reason not to pay taxes"

As mentioned above, from the perspective of property rights, property rights and tax rights are two important cornerstones for guaranteeing constitutionalism.If a country cannot legally establish the property relationship between individuals and the state, the contract between citizens and the state will lose its foundation.The contradictions it inspires may put the entire country and society in some kind of great danger at any time. In China, it is no secret that tax evasion and tax evasion have become common practice.Moreover, the relevant rumors and facts have considerable international influence.

On June 8, 2005, U.S. federal law enforcement agencies and Michigan state police jointly raided 17 Chinese restaurants and 21 Chinese residences across the state, detained dozens of Chinese citizens, and confiscated $400,000 in cash.The reason for the police search was that these Chinese restaurant owners evaded taxes because they reported only one-third of their income and took a large amount of the money they earned outside the United States. A few months later, the British "Financial Times" published a letter from a reader, which mentioned: "I have lived in the West for many years, and recently came to China to engage in financing for a company. Seeing that many entrepreneurs have filled their pockets, It’s really about taking care of China’s economy. Many companies have two accounts, and a company with a pre-tax profit of more than 50 million yuan only has a tax payment of more than one million yuan.” Also published in the same issue was an article entitled “China Tax Change: Challenges and Opportunities" review article.The article pointed out that most people living in China can tell some stories of bad "entrepreneurs" evading taxes.The real estate company that ranks first in China's "Top Ten Huge Profits" ranks last in the tax payment list. In Beijing alone, from 2003 to the first half of 2005, the tax evasion rate of real estate companies investigated by the Beijing Local Taxation Bureau was as high as 66%, and as many as 24 real estate companies were investigated and dealt with with an amount of more than 10 million yuan.

The Financial Times noticed a strange phenomenon: Although there are many domestic, foreign, state-owned and private companies evading taxes in China, China's tax revenue has been rising steadily, and the growth rate obviously far exceeds the GDP growth rate.Minister of Finance Xie Xuren disclosed that during the "Tenth Five-Year Plan" period (2001-2005), China's tax revenue totaled 10,921.7 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 19.5%, more than doubling in five years.Although China's finance and tax authorities and official scholars defended this by saying that China's tax increase was not "extraordinary growth" considering that the 2004 GDP revision figure was just raised by 16.8%, this did not stop "Forbes" magazine from calling China's tax burden " Misery Index" rose from fourth place in 2004 to first place in 2005.

Chinese economists admit that "the tax burden of the rich in China is the lightest in the world", and the media also complain that although all sectors of society have been calling for China to "conform to international standards" for many years, the establishment of consumption tax, luxury tax, gasoline tax, inheritance tax, etc. Taxes and other taxes are reserved for the rich, but this kind of tax reform measures are just to prevent thunder and no rain.Of course, all this is also the result of the game.It goes without saying that the current Chinese tax system not only fails to balance wealth, but also has the characteristics of robbing the poor and helping the rich.

In 1935, Hu Shi published "New Year's Dream" in "Ta Kung Pao" ("Hu Shi's Collected Works", Volume 11, page 532), in which he mentioned a warning given to Hu Shi by the health experts of the League of Nations: "Sir, China has the greatest danger. There is one most unjust crime that civilized countries in the world will never allow. The burden of the entire Chinese government, whether it is the central or local government, is all borne on the shoulders of the vast majority of poor peasants; Almost all classes in China have no tax burden. The richer they are, the more they don’t have to pay taxes; Finally, he wrote: "My first New Year's wish is to dream that in this New Year I can see the transformation of China's taxation system." It should be said that until today, Hu Shi's long-cherished wish has not been realized.

As we all know, an important function of taxation is to adjust the income gap.The principle is to collect a little more from the rich to help the low-income class with education, medical care, urban transportation and other expenses.The general approach adopted is progressive income taxation.But in China, because it is difficult to collect taxes on property income, income tax is mainly levied on wage income, and property income is the main source of income for the rich.The result is that a larger portion of the income of the wealthy goes untaxed. Economist Mao Yushi thus reminded readers not to just care about whether the threshold for individual tax is 1,600 yuan or 2,000 yuan, but ignore the bulk of the tax payment.In fact, personal income tax only accounts for 7% of the total tax revenue, and the remaining 93% is also collected from the common people.It's just that "our government is very smart. It doesn't let you know after collecting taxes. Unlike most other countries, how much tax is collected from the people must be clearly told to the taxpayers. When we buy things from supermarkets, the price includes They all include tax, but it’s not written on the receipt. We make phone calls and use the electricity to pay electricity bills, and there is tax in it, and the receipt is not clearly written.” (Mao Yushi, "The Poor Tax Burden is Higher Than the Rich" )

In the Chinese context, "no reason not to pay taxes" has two completely opposite meanings: one is that citizens have no reason to refuse to pay taxes, which is relative to the obligations of citizens; Reasons, otherwise the people can refuse to pay this kind of tax, the opposite of which is the right of citizens.The two meanings seem to be opposite, but they are actually the unity of rights and obligations. The former, in modern society, people regard death and paying taxes as two inevitable events in life.Death is inevitable for everyone in the end, and so is paying taxes.A person, living in an organized society, enjoys various social services, and services have costs and prices.

As far as obligations are concerned, Mao Yushi once wrote an article pointing out that Chinese people who have just transitioned from a planned economy have not yet established a sense of paying taxes.Not only the common people think this way, even the government still retains similar ideas, and does not regard tax payment as an inevitable thing for a person.At first, there were Olympic champions who received tax-free bonuses (this provision has been abolished), and later academicians of the Academy of Sciences who received tax-free bonuses-these people can be exempted from taxes due to honors, somewhat like France, which enjoyed "financial immunity" back then Aristocrats - It seems that paying taxes is the business of ordinary people.If you win the championship and become an academician, you are no longer an ordinary person, and you can also be exempted from paying taxes.Overseas, the monitoring of government officials' tax payment is particularly strict, which is the minimum standard for testing whether a person is qualified to be an official.In China, however, it is almost never heard of any official being checked for tax payments.

And now there is another reason for tax evasion among ordinary people, saying that it is because the government is not clean enough, and they are not happy to pay taxes to corrupt officials.However, if this logic holds true, the consequences will be unimaginable, because corruption will be difficult to eradicate for a while, and if the government does not have tax revenue, the country will also be unsustainable, and even anti-corruption will cost money.The government is its own agency, not someone else's business, so how can it stand by and do nothing!Because the government is not clean enough and does not pay taxes, it is actually giving up part of its civil rights.After all, people who evade taxes often have a hard time policing the government with confidence. (Mao Yushi, "There is no reason not to pay taxes")

As for rights, from the perspective of property rights, taxation means that part of the property rights of taxpayers is "legally deprived" by political power, but it must be noted that this "deprivation" of power is not "natural" by the state or government just have it.Li Weiguang, a well-known tax law expert, believes that in a democratic and legal society, the government provides public products and services to citizens, and citizens pay taxes to the government.Here, tax is not only the remuneration received by the government for providing public services, but also the price for citizens to purchase government services, and the tax burden mainly depends on the quantity and quality of public services provided by the government.From this perspective, the relationship between the state and taxpayers is like a trader in the market, reflecting a relationship of exchange of interests, equality and mutual benefit.Since the two parties are in an equal legal relationship, how to levy taxes cannot be unilaterally decided by the government, but must be agreed in advance by the other party—the taxpayer.Taxpayers formulate various tax laws through legislative procedures through representatives they elect, and all other collections are invalid and illegal.

If the government has the "natural" right to set its own tax regulations, it is tantamount to admitting that the government has the right to control the property rights of taxpayers, which is tantamount to fundamentally denying the taxpayers' right to "legitimate" personal property stipulated in the Constitution. ownership.In order to achieve the goal of taxpayers deciding and controlling the state's right to tax, the country must establish a well-functioning electoral system to protect taxpayers' right to vote and be elected, to protect taxpayers' freedom of thought and speech, and to protect taxpayers from taxation. Freedom from fear, and permanently leave the power of tax "authorization" in the hands of public opinion organs such as parliaments or people's congresses.The so-called "no taxation without representation" is essentially the "parliamentary reservation" of tax legislation.In this way, the power of the state to levy taxes is legitimate and legitimate.Simply put, taxation is a unity of obligations and rights.Rights are active and represent interests; obligations are passive and represent burdens.The total amount of rights and obligations in a society are roughly equal, they are interdependent and restrict each other, there is no right without obligation, and there is no obligation without right. In The Tax Dilemma: England's Fiscal Crisis, Parliament, and Liberty, David Harris Sacks analyzes fiscal thinking in the two centuries preceding the English Revolution of 1640. As early as the fifteenth century, the British thinker Ford Squieu divided the monarchy into two types: one is absolute monarchy, and the ruler, with the assistance of his main servants, judges for himself when his income needs and predatory instincts will attack him. The productive lives of subjects cause long-term harm, or stimulate them to rebel.Under such a system, subjects are tantamount to "slaves under patriarchal rule".The other was the mixed monarchy in England at the time, in which the king governed his people according to the laws his people agreed to, so they couldn't tax them without their consent. Although Fortesquieu maintained a certain prejudice against France at that time, it must be admitted that he had a clear judgment on the separation of the two countries in the future.Fortesquieu clearly saw that if the king's rule was "merely of the monarch" as in France, then all kinds of evil would arise, such as soldiers stationed in villages at no cost, and if the villagers refused this burden To be struck with sticks.In contrast, in England, where individual liberty and property rights are respected, no one lives in another man's house against his will, nor enforces his belongings with impunity.Although the king could take necessities from his house through royal eminent domain, the king had to compensate them at an appropriate price.Because of this, Fortesquieu believed that in England, the people would not hurt each other, and had all the things necessary for survival. They would not only be strong enough to resist the enemies of the kingdom, but would also treat their king better than the subjects of France. He brings more benefits.This point can be seen through the later history.Although Britain and France both executed their kings during the revolutionary years, Britain was not as bloody as the French Revolution, and it still retains a constitutional monarchy. In 1610, a lawyer named Thomas Hedley gave a brilliant speech in opposition to the adjustment tax imposed by the Crown on a range of imported goods.Hedley did not object to the king's taxation, but only if the taxpayer's consent should be obtained, and England should at the same time protect residents' property from robbery by neighbors or politics.Like Fortescue, Hedley believed that because the English freely enjoyed their property, they were fit to be warriors, defending their liberty and property like knights and gentlemen.Any violation of property must inevitably lead to a violation of liberty, and those who cannot protect their property must not be able to defend their liberty. The 1628 Petition of Rights proposed protection of property and liberty against taxes not sanctioned by Congress, captivity without just cause, quartering of soldiers without consent and without proper compensation, and application of military law to common subjects, among others.In their view, arbitrary taxation and arbitrary detention will make citizens lose their sense of security in this country and damage the value of this country's existence. It should be said that it was the above-mentioned consistent idea of ​​taxation rights that provided theoretical resources for the two subsequent revolutions in Britain and the promulgation of the Bill of Rights. At the Two Sessions in 2008, Wen Jiabao made such a meaningful statement on the reform of public finance: "In fact, the financial history of a country is thrilling. If you read it, you will see not only economic development, but also social structure. and fairness and justice.” People who are familiar with the history of the French Revolution know that the core problem of that revolution was the serious financial problems of the French royal family at that time. In the article "Escape to Varonas—Apocalypse of Fiscal Reform on the Eve of the French Revolution", Li Weiguang made a profound analysis of the French finances on the eve of the French Revolution.Although China is not mentioned throughout the article, the reference to China today is obvious. First of all, the French autocratic monarchy has created a super-large government, and the people have to use limited resources to fill this huge bottomless pit, resulting in an inescapable financial burden and social conflicts that cannot be resolved.Under the autocratic monarchy, the ruler's financial needs are infinite, "and he is unwilling to ask for it from the three-level conference, so the system of selling officials and nobles came into being. This phenomenon has never been seen in the world."As early as the era of Henry IV, the system of selling officials and nobles was established, and it became crazy after Louis XIII.Moreover, the official system is like a "Pandora's box," once the lid is lifted, "it can no longer be closed." After the bourgeois bought official positions, they became members of the feudal ruling class. Although they were different from the old aristocrats, the social status and various privileges brought by the official positions still made most of them willingly serve as monarchs. Serving the autocratic system, and this is exactly the political purpose of the feudal monarchs using the official system to divide and disintegrate the bourgeoisie.The resulting economic result was that the bourgeoisie used a large amount of funds to purchase official positions, but could not use them for investment in production and operation, and the development of capitalism in France was thus adversely affected. Under the old system, the king’s power to allocate financial resources was unlimited. He regarded the state’s finances as private property, and there was no effective supervision mechanism. Where the money was spent was his own business, and others had no right to make irresponsible remarks. This was also unlimited. One of the faces of the government.In France, the king wins over the nobles as much as possible, making them jesters, spending time and drinking, drunk and dreaming.On the eve of the Great Revolution, there were often seventeen or eight thousand noble courtiers in the Palace of Versailles, of which 469 served the queen, 274 served the younger brother, the king's aunt had 200 entourages, and even the newborn daughter of Louis XVI was served by 80 nobles. , All the money to feed these people comes from the kingdom government's finances. Secondly, the lack of justice and equality in the collection of taxes by the autocratic monarchy government is the root cause of the intensification of class conflicts and social conflicts, and ultimately the revolution.The old system of France was an aristocratic regime in its nature. In order to weaken and divide the power of the aristocratic class and prevent it from posing a threat to the royal power, the king made compromises with the feudal nobles and priests and gave up taxation on nobles and priests. What's more serious is that part of the bourgeoisie has also joined the ranks of exploiting the peasants.Some bourgeois buy official positions from the government. After obtaining official positions, they have the right to be exempted from taxation. In order to obtain more money, the government keeps inventing new positions to sell, so a large number of new tax-exempters have emerged. In this way, while the amount of taxes collected by the government continues to increase, the number of people who bear these taxes continues to decline, and the tax burden of maintaining the huge national financial needs of the unlimited government falls entirely on the shoulders of the third class, especially on the shoulders of farmers. Then there is the situation described by Tocqueville: "He who is most able to pay taxes is exempted from taxes, and those who are least able to pay taxes are taxed. When taxes are paid for this purpose, it must lead to that terrible The consequence of this—the rich are exempt from taxes, the poor pay." "Thus, to all the individual inequalities already existing, there is added a more general one, which exacerbates and maintains all the other inequalities." At the same time, the unequal tax burden between the bourgeoisie and the nobility, and the resulting serious class antagonism, caused the bourgeoisie to be dissatisfied with the autocratic monarchy, and they did not hesitate to "rebel" during the Great Revolution to overthrow the autocratic monarchy. reason. The historian Marcel Marion, who is famous for his research on French finance, believes that the power that destroyed French finance during the French Revolution was the privilege and the privileged people, that is, the nobility.The fiscal immunity they enjoyed, whether inherited or purchased, while destroying French finances also put the king in the ludicrous position of taxing those who had nothing to tax.Although some sensitive nobles offered to waive the idea of ​​financial immunity, these details were ignored in the circumstances at the time-especially after the French royal family resolved the two financial crises of 1720 and 1763.Moreover, as Tocqueville said, that era was both enlightened and wealthy in French history.No one realizes that a head-on revolution is coming. Although there are many other reasons for the French Revolution, among many reasons, the people’s lack of taxation and budgetary powers is not only the reason for the unlimited expansion of the autocratic government, but also the source of the French people’s unbearable in a society where the jungle preys on the strong.In today's China, countless students give up starting their own businesses and take the civil service exam, so they know how attractive the government departments are.Related to this, the size of government has ballooned over the decades.As mentioned above, at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were only a few hundred cadres in large county organs, but now some township organs have as many as four to five hundred cadres. In her famous "Golden Speech", Elizabeth I emphasized that the monarch has a sacred duty to protect the kingdom from "danger, dishonor, disgrace, tyranny and oppression", which can easily come from within the kingdom as well as from without .To provide this protection requires not only vigilance but also the exercise of power, and thus funding. Still, a budget is essential.As Sachs said, for that era, the benefit of the budget was not only to avoid financial crisis, but also to avoid the country being involved in war as much as possible.A king wages war and spends more than he collects in taxes.If he borrowed to make up the difference, there would be no financial crisis.But if he can't borrow enough money, or if he's forced to default on old loans, then a crisis erupts.The crisis would also break out if he took desperate measures, such as plundering the property of his subjects, or withholding the rations of troops.Therefore, in order to avoid this situation, the wise king will try his best to be restrained, because once he encounters a difficult enemy, the government may go bankrupt due to the huge expenditure caused by the war. In Britain in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the theoretical basis for taxation was the theory of necessity.When a kingdom faces an emergency or is in danger, it is the duty of all its members to help it.Sometimes peace plans are also supported by direct parliamentary revenues, and to do this royal lawyers have had to find clever ways of presenting them as preparations for defense in the face of an impending crisis.For example, in British history, there is a tax called "Danegeld" (Danegeld), the purpose of which is to deal with the invasion of the Danes and other disasters.By the mid-sixteenth century, however, this legal or rhetorical basis for appropriation of taxes had been revised, and the Crown's justification for funding was no longer merely to support its military needs but to help it provide the general costs of good government.Simply put, it is to buy better services from the government. When it comes to war and taxes, one has to mention Thoreau and why he resisted taxes.Although tax resistance is not tolerated in modern society, Thoreau's tax resistance was driven by a certain public spirit in the United States in the nineteenth century. The author of this book was once imprisoned for refusing to pay poll taxes owed for several years.The reason why he resisted taxes was not because Thoreau's family was poor and could not pay taxes, but because he opposed the US policies at that time: one was slavery, and the other was the Mexican-American War.He is willing to go to jail and refuse to pay taxes because of this philosophy.It is said that Thoreau was very angry after his relatives offered to pay taxes for him, and he was unwilling to leave prison until the warden kicked him out.This detail is quite a bit of the momentum and determination of "filling up the prison" when black Americans defended their rights a hundred years later.Thoreau later wrote "On Civil Disobedience" about this experience.It was the idea of ​​"civil resistance" and the spirit of "civil disobedience" shown in this article that later influenced Tolstoy and Gandhi. In a book, Thoreau briefly recorded this experience and explained why he resisted taxes in a nonviolent rather than extreme way: "One afternoon, at the end of my first summer, I went to the village , went to the shoemaker for a shoe, I was arrested and put in jail because, as I stated in another article ("On Civil Disobedience"), I refused to pay taxes to the state , does not even recognize the power of this country, which buys and sells men, women, and children like cattle and horses at the gates of parliament. I would have gone to the forest for other things. But wherever a man goes, the world Dirty agencies always follow him wherever they go, and stretch out their hands to snatch him... Really, I could have resisted forcefully, with some results, I could have crazily opposed society, but I would rather let society go crazily Come against me, because it is the desperate group." Obviously, the "society" Thoreau talked about here is not strictly speaking the society in Drucker's sense, but the society and the state that are coerced by the government. In comparison, why do Chinese people have little public spirit?Why stay away from politics?Ming Enpu told such a meaningful story in the book "The Quality of Chinese People": In 1851, the year when Emperor Daoguang "died", a foreigner named Huc and several A friend left Beijing to go out. When drinking tea in an inn, he met a group of Chinese people.Several foreigners wanted to initiate a "little political discussion". They put forward various speculations on the succession of the throne, intending to guide the Chinese present to express their views.However, the few Chinese were indifferent to this, and continued to puff and drink tea.The indifference of the Chinese angered foreigners and aroused their resentment.At this time, an old Chinese man got up and came over, put his hands on Mr. Heck's shoulders, and said with a sneer, "Listen to me, my friend, why do you bother with these idle and futile speculations? Ministers care For this matter, they are taking this salary. Let them take their salary, but don’t let us worry about it. We have nothing to pay, and we still care about politics, wouldn’t we be the biggest fools in the world?" The so-called "you don't care about politics, but politics care about you".Whether you care about politics or not, politics still affects everyone's fate in the end.However, on the whole, the amount of national public spirit is inseparable from the rights they enjoy.A society without rights is sleepy.If the citizens do not get the rights they deserve, they will lose confidence in the country and care less and less about the country over time. Such a country will fall apart sooner or later.Obviously, a country should use real rights to unite the people and rebuild the public spirit, rather than hypocritical moral preaching.This kind of preaching often gets superficial acceptance and inner resistance. In the words of Romain Rolland, if a country has no interest in criticizing its citizens, then it is really hopeless. Oliver Holmes said: "Taxation is our payment to civilized society." John Marshall said: "The power to tax is the power to destroy." On the one hand, taxes can extract wealth from individuals or institutions; On the other hand, it has to be admitted that life and liberty cannot be guaranteed without the protection of organized state power backed by taxes.In this respect, taxation can not only protect rights and freedoms, but also threaten rights and freedoms.On this point, Montesquieu has a good summary.In "The Spirit of Laws", Montesquieu analyzed the relationship between taxation, different regimes and liberty, and pointed out that "public taxation is a part of each citizen's transfer from his property, its purpose is to protect and Enjoy the rest."Montesquieu believed that a moderate government would be more likely than an autocratic government to tax its citizens heavily, because "citizens will happily pay taxes when they think they are paying themselves." The level of a country's governance capacity is also determined by the country's budget capacity and whether tax collection has the consent of the people.On the surface, taxation and public budget are just the calculation of the government's revenue and expenditure for a certain period in the future, which is a technical issue, but in fact it is a political issue.To some extent, it is also the core issue of politics, and it affects the whole body.If a government that collects taxes without the consent of the people is a "government with open flames", then a government without a budget is an "invisible government". As Li Weiguang said, Article 56 of the "Constitution of the People's Republic of China" stipulates that "citizens of the People's Republic of China have the obligation to pay taxes in accordance with the law."Formally speaking, taxation can be regarded as included in the constitution, but its incompleteness is obvious.Corresponding to taxation, there is also taxation power, and taxation should be the unity of rights and obligations.Judging from the provisions of the Constitution, there is neither any statutory content on taxation, nor any provisions on the rights of taxpayers, nor does it clearly state whether the tax collection requires the consent of the representative organ (the People's Congress).On taxation, the most important issue involving the life and death of the country and the relationship between the government and citizens, the fundamental laws of the country are blank, which cannot but be said to be a great shortcoming. Given the conspicuous deficiencies in the constitution, the tax legislation must be even more incomplete.Of the more than 20 types of taxes currently levied in China, only three have been enacted by the National People's Congress, namely the Personal Income Tax Law, the Income Tax Law of Foreign-Invested Enterprises and Foreign Enterprises, and the Tax Administration Law. They are all unconstitutional and violate the "Legislation Law". For example, there is no clear authorization in taxation administrative regulations, let alone meet the authorization requirements stipulated in the "Legislation Law". According to Li Weiguang's understanding, as far as taxation is concerned, rights are the first factor, and obligations are the second factor.The tax law is based on the taxpayer's rights, and the taxpayer's rights constitute the core of the tax legal system.Rights are the manifestation of the autonomy and independence of individual taxpayers, and are the objective boundaries for the state to create tax laws and norms.The taxpayer's right is the purpose, the obligation is the means, and the setting of the obligation is for the realization of the taxpayer's right.In an authoritarian or non-democratic society, the relationship is just the opposite.The law is a tool for the rulers to maintain their privileges. They have unlimited rights, while the people bear unlimited obligations. It is an obligation-based law.The biggest drawback of China's traditional social system is that it emphasizes obligations over rights, regards the law as a tool to prevent and govern the people, and regards the people as servants who only follow the ruler's lead.However, the relationship between the country, the government and the people that Chinese people can understand so far is still "close to the people" and "love the people". The rights-based concept is far from it. (Li Weiguang, "To Chinese Taxpayers") Talking about the origin of constitutional government, Richard Pipes demonstrated in "Property and Liberty" that private ownership of land is the basis of British constitutional government and representative system.Since the private right to land is sacrosanct, the king must require property owners to pay taxes.Since private property owners were financially independent of the king, who in turn demanded from the people, tax collection had always been a headache.In the early days, the British royal family obtained considerable financial income from selling royal land, and later mainly relied on taxes.In order to solve the difficulty of taxation, the king began to convene the Congress, let the Congress set its own tax rate, and formed a constitutional commitment-"No tax increase without the consent of Congress". Parliament is another political center independent of the monarchy in British history.The king would not have liked it, but, bound by the inviolability of private property, had to collect taxes with the help of Parliament.Under this institutional environment, the British king's finances had to rely on the representative organs of public opinion.There are several kings who seldom hold parliaments as much as possible, and only remember to hold meetings when taxes are to be raised.But this system gradually evolved into a habit: "No tax without representation." The king slowly accepted this relationship between public finance and king's taxation. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the average tax rate in Britain was much higher than that in France, but the people paid taxes honestly, and the country became rich and powerful (per capita income was one-third higher than that in France). This was naturally due to private property plus representative system.Although France has the "Napoleonic Code", its infringement of private property is much more serious than that of Britain.The minerals under the land surface are not owned by the landowner in France, but the private ownership of land in Britain is very thorough, and everything above and below the ground belongs to the landlord.According to Merck, this is the basis for the difference in the rules of the game between the British and French constitutions.With a representative system, the tax rate can be set by the people themselves, and the tax rate can be higher for public construction.The historian Huang Renyu once expressed the same point of view in his writings on the difference between the significance of taxation in a constitutional country and an autocratic country. Why did France decline while Britain rose?The key is that the British constitutional government limited the royal power, thereby ensuring clear property rights without interference from the supreme ruler; while the absolute royal power of France made corruption flourish, outdated interest groups maintained the old order, property rights were not respected, and the emerging business class was suppressed.In the words of the late economist Yang Xiaokai, "If the system of not protecting land property rights was correct, France should have been richer and stronger than Britain, rather than France having to change its autocratic system when it broke out in a revolution under the stimulus of backwardness." Rather than rebuilding belief in law, rebuilding belief in rights may be more relevant to this era.Because all legal regulations are designed for rights; because rights are the foundation of laws; because only by upholding a solid concept of rights can the conscience of the system and the law be supported.If it is admitted that constitutional government must be supported by taxation rights and property rights, it is not difficult to find that the process of socialization and capitalization in China under the background of "de-empowerment" is not just a simple process of rediscovering society, it is more for China to move towards The foundation of constitutionalism was laid.