Rethinking institutional capacity and tax regimes

The case of the Sino-Foreign Salt Inspectorate in Republican China

Bibliographic Data

ID23245641
AuthorsJulia C Strau (0000-0002-7500-3682, corresponding author), Julia C Strauss
Year2008
Pages212-234
Publication date2008-01-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueTaxation and State-Building in Developing Countries (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/cbo9780511490897.009
OpenAlexW1598291846
ISBN9780511490897
LanguageEN
Citations received7

Unenjoyable and equally unavoidable, taxation is at the very heart of politics: we find it at the macro-level concerns of political sociology and state-making, at the micro-level of individual compliance or resistance, and everywhere in between. The making of tax policy is an inherently political process, indeed so political that it could neatly invert the old aphorism: that politics is about who has to pay what, when, where and how. It is the fundamental argument of this chapter that the less ‘political’ and the more ‘bureaucratic’ the implementation of a tax regime is, the more legitimate it is likely to be for all concerned: political elites, taxpayers and tax administrators. The more legitimate state extraction is perceived to be, the more legitimate the state itself is likely to be.

Argument (complex analysis) · Bureaucracy · China · Compliance (psychology) · Economic system · Economics · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Resistance (ecology) · State (computer science) · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Law · Social Psychology

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