个税改革、收入不平等与社会福利

《财经研究》 2021年47卷第1期 页码：18 - 31  online：2020年12月30日

个税改革、收入不平等与社会福利

Personal Income Tax Reform, Income Inequality and Social Welfare

作者（中）：王凯风1, 2 *, 吴超林2

作者（英）：Wang Kaifeng1, 2 *, Wu Chaolin2

作者单位：1.广东省社会科学院，广东 广州 510635 2.华南师范大学 经济与管理学院，广东 广州 510006

摘要：2005年以来，历次中国个税改革均以提高免征额和调整税率表为主要内容，上述改革措施的分配效应一直存在争议。文章通过建立一个能体现个税累进性与税负归宿的新凯恩斯动态随机一般均衡模型，分解并模拟了提高免征额和增加税率累进幅度所导致的分配效应。结果表明：（1）提高免征额扩大了税前收入不平等的波动，恶化了宽松货币政策等外生冲击下的初次分配。此外，免征额的提高削弱了累进税率对收入初次分配的调节能力。（2）在就业扩张过程中，提高免征额所带来的税负归宿变化改善了税后收入不平等，而且在免征额提升后，税率累进幅度的提高能进一步改善收入再分配。当然，个税改革的初次分配效应和再分配效应均具有状态依存特征，在就业与劳动收入下降时会带来相反的分配效应。（3）提高免征额会导致更大的福利损失，并削弱累进税率对福利损失的抑制作用。

关键词：个人所得税; 免征额; 累进税率; 收入不平等

Summary: In 2018, China’s personal income tax system ushered in the seventh reform after its introduction in 1980. In this reform, tax exemption and tax rate table are still the main adjustment objects. However, there are still a lot of debates on the actual distribution effect of such reform measures.The specific research objects of this paper can be divided into the following two issues: (1) Can the common measures of personal income tax reform in China since 2005 bring a positive income distribution effect? (2) While adjusting income distribution, can the reform of personal income tax bring a positive welfare effect in the process of economic fluctuation? The research on the above two issues is not only conducive to improving the fairness of distribution, but also helpful to explore the new orientation of future personal income tax reform and realize the reasonable coordination between fairness and efficiency, which makes the research content more suitable for the reform and development needs of stable employment and stable growth under the new normal state of China’s economy.In the process of research, this paper first constructs a new Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (NK-DSGE) model with heterogeneous households and progressive personal income tax, and realizes the parameterization of the model with the usage of Bayesian estimation method. Then, using the NK-DSGE model, the dynamic simulation (impulse response analysis) of the effect of the personal income tax reform plan in 2018 (and the possible extensive plan in the future) is carried out. Finally, the welfare loss function is derived from the NK-DSGE model equations, and the efficiency decline and welfare loss caused by various personal income tax reform measures are calculated. Compared with the existing literature, the NK-DSGE analysis in this paper is not only limited to depicting the progressivity of tax rate (the progressive range of tax rate in the tax rate table), but also can simulate the effect of diversified personal income tax reform measures including tax exemption, and analyze the superposition and interaction of different reform measures based on flexible model construction and simulation analysis scheme design.The results show that: (1) The increase of tax exemption expands the fluctuation of pre-tax income inequality and worsens the initial distribution under exogenous shocks such as loose monetary policy. Moreover, the increase of tax exemption weakens the adjustment ability of progressive tax rate to the primary distribution of income. (2) In the process of employment expansion, the change of tax burden brought about by the increase of tax exemption improves the after-tax income distribution. Moreover, after the increase of tax exemption, the increase of the progressivity of tax rate can further improve the income redistribution. Of course, the primary distribution effect and redistribution effect of personal income tax reform have the characteristics of state dependence, which will bring an opposite distribution effect when employment and labor income decrease. (3) Increasing the amount of tax exemption will lead to greater welfare loss, and at the same time, it will weaken the inhibitory effect of progressive tax rate on welfare loss.The main policy enlightenment from the above research results is that future personal income tax reform should carefully adjust tax exemption and focus on the increase of the progressivity of tax rate, so as to better guarantee the high-quality development of China’s economy. In addition, we can also consider adding the dynamic rules of tax exemption which peg the aggregate fluctuation of employment and income to deal with the state dependence of the distribution effect of exemption adjustment policy, so as to make the adjustment of tax exemption produce continuous and positive distribution effects.

Key words: personal income tax; tax exemption; progressive tax rate; income inequality

DOI：10.16538/j.cnki.jfe.20190917.101

收稿日期：2019-3-24

基金项目：中国博士后科学基金面上项目（2019M662960）；广东省哲学社会科学规划一般项目（GD19CYJ04）

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