| Summary: | 碩士 === 東海大學 === 會計學系 === 101 === The provision of tax benefit should be restricted by the principles of equality, proportionality and tax legality under the constitution, as it violates the rule of " ability-to-pay principle ". In 2002, Taiwan del-regulated the import of agricultural products for access to the WTO (World Trade Organization). In order to reduce the impact on agriculture, the Legislative Yuan amended the Agricultural Development Act and related laws to adjust the policy of "agricultural land is owned by farmers for rural use only" to the policy of " relaxing ownership of agricultural land, but enforcing agricultural land for rural use " in 2000 and 2003. After amending the law, however, the government has not reduced the tax benefit for agricultural land although the qualification of owning agricultural land was relaxed.Therefore, it is disputable whether the regulations concerning tax benefit for agricultural landafter the amendment of the law correspond with the above principles, andhence further discussion is deserved.
Analysis of documents is the research method used in this study, and the problems of tax benefit for farmland and recommendations for improvementare discussed. The results show that the present regulations concerning tax benefit for agricultural land have not taken into consideration the location of agricultural land. As the same standard applies to both urban and non-urban agricultural land, the urban agricultural land often turns into a speculative instrument because of relatively lower holding cost. Secondly, the regulation that permits the construction offarmhouseon agricultural land not only results in serious damage to the agricultural production environment, but also becomes a way of tax evasion because farmhouses are free from the burden of land value tax, exempted from land value increment tax, and also enjoy the benefit of estate tax and gift tax exemption. Land regarded as rural land is not reallyused for agricultural purpose, and so the offer of tax benefitdoes not match the intention of rewarding "agricultural land for rural use". Asthe estate and gift tax is levied on the basis of base-reduction method, with no upper limit, it is likelythat an adverse effect of subsidies would be resulted.
This study suggests the following:
Firstly, with respect to the definition of agricultural land, farmhouse should be deleted from Paragraph 1, Article 10 of Land Tax Act (Subparagraph 10, Article 3 of Agricultural Development Act and Subparagraph 3, Article 3 of The Equalization of Land Rights Act) to protect the resources of agricultural land.
Secondly, in terms of agricultural land tax, the proviso of Article 22 of the Land Tax Act should be deleted. Urban agricultural land should be levied land value tax on the basis of graded preferential tax rate, and the land value tax should be paid for more than 10 years to be eligible for applying for changing the land to non-agricultural use,so that the incentive for speculation of urban agricultural land would be reduced. In addition, regulations on the land for levying agricultural land tax should be added, limiting the land owners to natural persons and the farmer groups, agribusiness organizations and agricultural research institutes prescribed in the Agricultural Development Act, so as to live up to the principle of tax legality and the intention of the constitution to foster self-tilling farmers.
Thirdly, in terms of land value increment tax,it is recommended that Article 39-2 of the Land Tax Act and Article 38-1 of the Agricultural Development Act (Article 57-1 of for the Enforcement Rules of the Land Tax Act) be deleted. Land value increment tax should be levied for the sale of agricultural land (including deemed agricultural land), but Article 35 of the Land Tax Act stipulating the refund of land value increment tax for repurchase of self-cultivated farmland should be kept, to comply with the intention of the constitution to share the appreciation of land price with the public and to encourage people cultivating their own land.
Lastly, in terms of estate and gift tax,it is recommended that an upper limit should be prescribed for the concession of estate and gift tax in order to comply with the principle of proportionality.
Keywords：Tax benefit, tax legality, Principle of equality, Principle of proportionality,Externality,Agricultural land
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