Tax Law Tutorial

Author: Chen Shaoying
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: In Western countries, the tradition of tax legalism has been established for several centuries, and tax law has also formed a complete scientific system. In China, however, the study of tax law started relatively late, and this discipline is still underdeveloped. With the rising importance of tax law in the national economy, research results in tax law have been continuously emerging. Especially in recent years, a group of tax law scholars, represented by Peking University, have published a series of tax law monographs and textbooks, making significant contributions to the prosperity and development of tax law and promoting the teaching and research of tax law in universities across the country. It was under this thriving situation of tax law research that I arrived at Huazheng Garden. From that time on, to be precise, from the moment I began teaching tax law to undergraduate students, I conceived the idea of compiling a tax law textbook suitable for Shanghai and for our undergraduate students.
Currently, at our university, tax law is an optional course across the entire campus, even within the School of Economics and Law, where it is a restricted elective course with only 36 class hours, and it is scheduled after the fourth-year internship. Unbeknownst to me, as Professor Liu Jianwen said, "Tax law is a special field in China's current legal system. It is not an independent department of law divided according to traditional standards of division by object of regulation, but rather a comprehensive legal department. Tax law involves both constitutional norms that concern the fundamental relations of the state and economic law norms deeply imbued with the spirit of macro-control, as well as a large number of administrative law norms that regulate administrative relations. Additionally, tax crimes involve criminal law norms, and their conviction and sentencing have strong professional characteristics; the guarantee of tax collection also requires the relevant systems of civil law, and so on."
Therefore, tax law is a comprehensive legal department in China's legal system that encompasses multiple legal departments such as constitutional law, economic law, administrative law, civil law, and criminal law. In the limited class hours, it is difficult to provide a comprehensive, systematic, and in-depth lecture on various tax-related legal phenomena, enabling students without a prior foundation in tax law to grasp its objective laws and spiritual connotations. Thus, a significant portion of our teaching effectiveness relies on the selection of textbooks, as teaching effectiveness is inherently closely related to textbook development. However, starting in 2003, our undergraduate students were gradually relocated to the Songjiang University Town, making it temporarily inconvenient for them to borrow or purchase books, which further solidified my determination to compile our own textbook.
During the textbook development process, we strived to embody the following pursuits: First, to make it suitable for undergraduate teaching. In terms of content, the definitions of concepts should be clear, logical arguments should be rigorous, and the collection of materials should be rich, with a reasonable system layout. At the same time, it appropriately introduces some hot issues in the forefront of tax law. In terms of form, it should be easy to understand, accessible, and supplemented with some charts and cases. Second, to comprehensively, systematically, and deeply explore tax legal issues from both theoretical and practical perspectives. In the five parts of the book, the first part discusses the basic theoretical issues of tax law, while the subsequent parts discuss some practical issues in China's tax legislation, enforcement, and adjudication, covering tax substantive law, tax procedural law, tax penalty law, and tax remedy law. Third, to pursue exploration and academic rigor. Given that China's tax law system is still underdeveloped and tax law research needs improvement, this textbook is not an interpretation or explanation of the current tax law but focuses on exploring issues, conducting some forward-looking research, striving for independent thinking, and proposing new ideas and perspectives.