The Tax Burden of the High-income Class in China and its Redistributive Effects

摘要

The empirical analysis in this paper indicates that China 's urban households in the highest quintile contribute about 70 per cent of total personal income tax (PIT) revenue.However,the average tax rate is extremely low,and theredistributive effect is quite weak.The analysis of Pearson correlation coefficients shows that it is the low average tax rate in particular of the high income class rather than tax progressivity that significantly affects the redistributive effect.Meanwhile,among different income quintiles,only the PIT share paid by households in the highest quintile is significantly and positively correlated with the redistributive effect.These results show that the fundamental approach to improving the redistributive effect of PIT in China is to increase the average tax rate,especially that of high-income earners.