“征税权即毁灭权”

——略论中国民营企业的制度困境

郑存柱

一、问题的提出

1819 年,美国首席大法官 John Marshall 在 McCulloch v. Maryland 一案中确立了一项至今

仍在美国宪法学说中占据核心地位的命题——”征税权涉及毁灭的权力”(the power to tax

involves the power to destroy)1。这一命题表面上服务于联邦至上原则(Supremacy

Clause)下州权力对联邦机构课税之合宪性问题的论证,但其更深远的意义在于揭示了一

个具有普遍性的宪法理论问题:征税权并非中性的财政技术工具,而是一种内含强制性、

塑造性、乃至毁灭性的国家权力。Marshall 之后两个世纪的美国宪法判例史,包括

Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. (1895) 关于直接税的争议2、Eisner v. Macomber (1920)

对”所得”概念的宪法界定3、以及 National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius

(2012) 对税收权与商业管制权之边界的重新厘清4,无一不是围绕”征税权之宪法边界”这

一核心命题展开。

本文意在以 Marshall 命题为分析起点,结合中美两套宪法与税法体系的对照,审视当代

中国的税收实践——尤其是 2024 年以来引发广泛关注的”倒查三十年”现象——并论证:

在缺乏违宪审查、缺乏稳固私有产权宪法保护、缺乏法不溯及既往原则之实质落实的制度

环境下,中国的征税权正在系统性地越过宪法与税收法定主义所设定的边界,滑向

Marshall 所警惕的”毁灭”领域。

笔者作为中国民主党联总主席,在本文中既试图作出法学层面的学理诊断,也希望表明本

党在民营经济议题上的基本宪法主张:私有产权与企业自由不是经济效率的附属品,而是

宪政秩序与公民基本权利的有机组成部分。

二、Marshall 命题的法学意涵及其现代修正

理解今日中国的税收困境,需要先回到 Marshall 命题本身的法学结构。Marshall 在

McCulloch 案中处理的是马里兰州能否对联邦合众国银行课税的具体争议,但其论证的真

正力量在于揭示了征税权的双重性格。一方面,征税是任何现代国家维持运行的财政基

础;另一方面,征税在技术上并无内在的上限——征税者一旦获得不受制约的裁量权,便

能通过税率、税基、追溯期、执行方式等手段在事实上消灭征税对象。Marshall 因此提

出,一个能够无限制征税的主体,等同于拥有了对征税对象的生杀予夺之权。

这一命题在二十世纪受到 Oliver Wendell Holmes 大法官的著名修正。Holmes 在

Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi (1928) 的反对意见中提出:”只要本院还存在,征税权就不

是毁灭权。”(The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.)5 Holmes

的修正并非否认 Marshall 的洞见,而恰恰是在承认其潜在危险的前提下,指出独立违宪

审查机制是约束征税权毁灭性的关键制度装置。这一命题在其后的判例中被反复印证:在

Eisner v. Macomber 中,最高法院否决了国会将股票股利视为”所得”加以课税的做法,明

确指出宪法对”所得”概念的限定不容立法权任意突破6;在 NFIB v. Sebelius 中,最高法

院虽以”税收权”为由维持了《平价医疗法案》的个人强制险条款,但同时通过 Roberts 首

席大法官的多数意见明确指出:”征税权虽广,但并非无界。”(“Even the broadest of

these powers is subject to limits.”)7

由此可以归纳出现代立宪国家处理税收权力的基本范式:征税权必须存在,但必须被一套

独立、可问责、可救济的法律机制所约束。具体而言,这一范式包含至少四项制度要素:

税收法定主义(Legality Principle, nullum tributum sine lege)、法不溯及既往原则(Non- retroactivity, lex prospicit, non respicit)、违宪审查机制(Judicial Review of Tax

Legislation)、以及正当法律程序(Due Process of Tax Enforcement)。这四项要素,恰恰

是观察今日中国税收制度的关键参照系。

三、中国现行宪法与税法框架的形式与实质

从纸面文本看,中国现行法律体系并非没有上述四项要素的形式安排。《中华人民共和国

宪法》第五十六条规定”中华人民共和国公民有依照法律纳税的义务”,第十三条第一款规

定”公民的合法的私有财产不受侵犯”。《中华人民共和国立法法》第八条第六项明确将” 税种的设立、税率的确定和税收征收管理等税收基本制度”列为只能由全国人民代表大会

及其常委会通过法律加以规定的事项,是为中国法上的税收法定主义8。《中华人民共和

国税收征收管理法》第五十二条则就税务机关的追征期作出具体规定:因税务机关责任致

使纳税人未缴或少缴税款的,追征期为三年;因纳税人计算错误等失误致使未缴或少缴税

款的,追征期为三年、特殊情况下可延长至五年;对偷税、抗税、骗税的,追征期不受限

制9。《中华人民共和国行政诉讼法》第十二条则将”行政机关作出的征收、征用决定及

其补偿决定”明确纳入受案范围10。

仅就文本而论,上述安排似乎已构成一个相当完整的”形式法治”框架。然而问题恰恰在

于,这一框架在实质运行中存在四重系统性的缺陷,使其难以发挥真正的约束功能。

第一重缺陷在于违宪审查机制的缺位。中国宪法第六十二条第二项虽授权全国人大”监督

宪法的实施”,第六十七条授权全国人大常委会”解释宪法、监督宪法的实施”,但中国并

不存在功能意义上的违宪审查机构——既无类似美国联邦最高法院的普通法院违宪审查模

式,亦无类似德国、奥地利、台湾地区宪法法院的集中审查模式。其结果是:即便某一税

收立法或税务执法行为在实质上违反了宪法第十三条的财产权保障,公民与企业也缺乏一

个可以诉诸的司法途径以使该违宪行为得到撤销或矫正。Holmes 所谓”只要本院还存在,

征税权就不是毁灭权”的制度承诺,在中国法语境下因此处于结构性的悬置状态。

第二重缺陷在于私有产权的宪法地位不对等。《宪法》第十二条规定”社会主义的公共财

产神圣不可侵犯”,而第十三条对私有财产的措辞则为”不受侵犯”。”神圣不可侵犯”与”不

受侵犯”之间的文本差异,并非纯粹的语义问题,而是反映了一种根本性的产权宪法等

级。这种等级一旦进入具体的行政与司法实践,便会自然演化为对民营企业不利的执法倾

向——因为在公共财产与私有财产发生冲突时,宪法文本本身已经预设了倾斜的天平。

第三重缺陷在于税收法定主义的实质架空。《立法法》第八条虽将税收基本制度列为法律

保留事项,但在实际操作中,大量税收规则系通过国务院行政法规、财政部和国家税务总

局的部门规章、乃至更低层级的规范性文件加以确定。更值得关注的是,税收政策的解释

权高度集中于税务行政机关本身——同一条税法条文,在不同地方、不同时期可以有完全

不同的解释。这一现象使得”税收法定”在形式上虽得维持,在实质上却演变为”税收行政

定”。

第四重缺陷在于法不溯及既往原则之实质落空。《立法法》第九十三条原则上规定”法

律、行政法规、地方性法规、自治条例和单行条例、规章不溯及既往”11。但 2024 年以来

的”倒查三十年”现象表明,即便不存在新法对旧行为的直接溯及适用,税务机关仍可通过

“重新解释”既有税法条款的方式,对历史上的企业行为进行追溯性的不利评价。这种做法

在形式上规避了《立法法》第九十三条的禁止,在实质上却完全实现了溯及既往的法律效

果。最高人民法院在《关于人民法院充分发挥审判职能作用保护产权和企业家合法权益典

型案例(第二批)》中曾援引”严格遵循法不溯及既往、罪刑法定、在新旧法之间从旧兼

从轻等原则”12,但这一表述仅出现在指导性案例的”典型意义”说明中,并不具有规范意义

上的拘束力。

四、”倒查三十年”作为制度症候:法学分析

2024 年 6 月,上市公司维维股份发布公告,称其原控股子公司湖北枝江酒业被要求补缴

1994 年至 2009 年的消费税共计 8500 余万元,追溯期长达三十年。这一事件之所以迅速从

一个上市公司公告演变为全国性话题,是因为它并非孤立个案。同一时段内,博汇股份因

被要求补缴近 5 亿元税款而宣布停产,藏格矿业被倒查二十年并追缴税款及滞纳金 1.88

亿元,湖南岳阳某地产开发商被倒查二十五年追罚九亿余元,杭州伊裳服饰、广东泰基集

团等多家企业均被纳入跨越一二十年的追缴清单13。

从法学角度审视,这一现象至少在三个层面构成对中国现行法的实质突破。

其一,追征期问题。《税收征收管理法》第五十二条所规定的最长追征期为五年,仅在偷

税、抗税、骗税的情形下不受期限限制。然而”倒查三十年”案件中的追缴依据,往往并非

对企业偷税行为的明确指控,而是对历史税收政策的”重新解释”。例如博汇股份案中,争

议核心在于其产品应按”重芳烃衍生品”还是”重芳烃”缴纳消费税,这本质上是一个税法适

用的解释问题,而非偷税认定问题14。在此情形下,将追征期延展至二十年甚至三十

年,已显著突破《税收征收管理法》第五十二条所设定的法律框架。

其二,法不溯及既往问题。一家企业在 1994 年依据当时的税法、当时的地方政策、当时

的征管实践合规经营,三十年后却被要求按 2024 年的解释补缴税款——这从实质上构成

了对《立法法》第九十三条所确立的”不溯及既往”原则的违反。即便税务机关辩称所适用

的仍是 1994 年当时的法律,其对该法律的”新解释”本身已经构成一种实质意义上的新规

范,将这一新规范适用于该规范形成之前的行为,与溯及既往并无实质区别。

其三,正当程序问题。在多起”倒查”案件中,企业被要求在极短期限内补缴巨额税款,且

对税务机关的认定缺乏有效的事前异议途径。《行政诉讼法》第十二条虽然将税务行政行

为纳入受案范围,但《税收征收管理法》第八十八条同时规定,纳税人对税务机关的纳税

决定不服的,必须先行缴纳税款或者提供相应的担保,然后才能申请行政复议;对复议决

定不服的,方可向人民法院起诉15。这一被业内通称为”双重前置”的程序设计,对于被

追缴数亿元税款的中小企业而言,实质上构成了司法救济的难以逾越之障碍——企业必须

先承担可能致其破产的财务压力,才能换取一个救济的机会。

国家税务总局于 2024 年 6 月 18 日的回应称,否认存在”全国性、行业性、集中性”的税务

检查或”倒查二十年、三十年的安排”,但同时承认上述追缴”均属税务部门例行的依法依

规正常履职行为”16。这一表态从法学角度看颇值得细读:它在否认”统一部署”的同时,

承认了”个案合法”。然而,当数十乃至数百起类似案件在短时间内集中爆发,且受影响者

高度集中于民营企业时,”个案合法”的官方叙事本身便面临严重的法理质疑——因为正当

法律程序所保障的,不仅是单个案件中的形式合法,更是法律适用的可预期性、一致性与

平等性。

五、财政结构与法治退化的相互强化

要理解上述法律失守何以发生,必须越出纯粹的法律文本,进入财政结构的分析。根据中

华人民共和国财政部公布的数据,2024 年全国税收收入为 174,972 亿元,比上年下降

3.4%;与此同时,全国非税收入达到 44,730 亿元,同比增长 25.4%,其中罚没收入增长

14.8%17。进入 2025 年,全国一般公共预算收入下降 1.7%,但地方本级财政收入仍维持

2.4% 的增长18。这一组数据所揭示的,是一个具有结构性意义的财政转向:正常税基持

续萎缩,而以罚款、追缴、补税为代表的”非常规收入”正成为地方政府维持收入增长的关

键支柱。

这一转向有其深刻的制度根源。1994 年分税制改革将主要税源上收中央,地方财政长期

高度依赖土地出让收入。随着 2021 年以来房地产市场的深度调整,土地财政模式难以为

继,地方政府面临空前的收支缺口。在这一压力下,税务追缴、行政罚款、跨地区执法等

手段逐渐演变为一种事实上的财政补偿机制。

从法学角度看,这一财政结构压力对税收法治的腐蚀作用是双重的。一方面,它使税务执

法的内在动机从”依法征收”扭曲为”按指标征收”——这与德国公法学者 Klaus Vogel 所言” 税法之首要功能在于约束国家征税权,而非授权国家征税权”的经典命题正好相反19。另

一方面,它使地方政府对”非常规收入”的依赖具有自我强化的特征:一旦罚没与追缴成为

财政收入的稳定来源,行政机关便会发展出维持乃至扩大这一来源的内在动机,而这一动

机又会反过来侵蚀法律对其行为的约束力。

中共自身在 2025 年的预算报告中不得不写入”坚决防止和纠正乱收费、乱罚款、乱摊派等

问题”的表述20,这一表态本身即构成对乱象存在的官方默认。但仅有政策性表态而无制

度性约束,难以真正扭转上述财政—法治的负反馈循环。

六、为何受害者高度集中于民营企业:宪法层面的解释

任何严肃的分析都不能回避一个具体的问题:为什么这一轮”倒查”的受害者,几乎清一色

是民营企业?东南大学华生教授在 2024 年 6 月的一次闭门研讨会后撰文指出,与会专家

普遍认为”被查的几乎全是民营企业”21。这一现象的解释,不能完全归结为执法层面的偶

然偏向,而必须从中国宪法结构的深层逻辑中寻找。

首先,是前文已论及的宪法产权地位的不对等。第十二条”神圣不可侵犯”与第十三条”不

受侵犯”之间的文本差异,构成了一种宪法层面的产权等级。这一等级在司法与行政实践

中的具体表现,便是国有资产受到更高强度的程序保护,而民营资产则在面对税务追缴等

行政行为时缺乏相应的宪法盾牌。

其次,是平等保护原则的实质缺失。《宪法》第三十三条第二款规定”中华人民共和国公

民在法律面前一律平等”。然而这一平等保护条款的适用范围长期局限于公民个人,而未

明确延伸至作为法人主体的企业之间的平等保护——国有企业与民营企业在税务执法中是

否享有同等的法律地位,至今缺乏明确的宪法解释与司法判例支撑。这一空白与美国宪法

第十四修正案下”平等保护条款”(Equal Protection Clause)经由 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. (1886) 等判例将企业纳入保护范围22 的演进相比,形成了显著

的制度落差。

第三,是政策导向的长期偏移。从 2018 年所谓”民营经济离场论”的争议,到 2021 年以来

对教培、互联网平台、房地产等以民营资本为主体的行业的连续强力监管,再到 2024 年

以来”倒查三十年”现象的浮现,可以观察到一条清晰的政策轨迹。这一轨迹在宪法层面的

反映是:宪法第六条所确立的”公有制为主体、多种所有制经济共同发展”的基本经济制

度,在实际运行中始终保留着”公有制为主体”对”多种所有制”的潜在优先性,使得民营经

济在制度地位上具有结构性的脆弱性。

七、历史的参照:1953 与 2024

任何对当前现象的分析,都难以回避一个历史参照——1956 年的公私合营。根据流亡海

外的上海企业家胡力任的口述史料,1956 年公私合营正式启动之前的三年,即 1953 年前

后,上海工商界已经经历了一轮大规模的”查账”行动23。三年之后,公私合营以国家几乎

不出资本的方式,将私人产业一夜之间纳入”公”的范畴。

历史不会简单重演,但制度的逻辑往往押韵。1953 年的”查账”与 2024 年的”倒查三十年” 之间,存在着某种值得严肃讨论的结构性相似——即在政治权力对私有财产缺乏宪法约

束、缺乏违宪审查制衡的前提下,行政性的财产再分配机制如何在合法性的外衣下逐步推

进。本党并不主张当下中国必将重演 1956 年的剧本,但本党认为,如果不对当前的征税

权运行模式加以根本性的宪法约束,那么这一历史押韵的风险就不能在法理上被简单排

除。

八、本党的宪法主张

基于上述分析,中国民主党在民营经济议题上的基本宪法主张可以归纳如下。

本党主张在宪法文本层面,通过修宪程序消除第十二条”神圣不可侵犯”与第十三条”不受

侵犯”之间的产权等级,使私有财产获得与公共财产完全对等的宪法保障;并明确将企业

法人纳入第三十三条平等保护条款的适用范围。

本党主张在违宪审查层面,建立功能意义上的宪法审查机构——无论采取专门的宪法法院

模式,还是赋予最高人民法院以违宪审查权,其核心在于使宪法第十三条的财产权保障与

第三十三条的平等保护具有真正的司法可执行性,从而在中国法语境下逐步实现 Holmes

大法官所言”只要本院还存在,征税权就不是毁灭权”的制度承诺。

本党主张在税收立法层面,严格执行《立法法》第八条的法律保留原则,限制行政机关通

过部门规章与规范性文件对税收基本制度作出实质性变更;同时将《税收征收管理法》第

五十二条的追征期上限——即便在偷税情形下——纳入立法明确,杜绝”追征期无限制”的

解释空间。

本党主张在正当程序层面,废除《税收征收管理法》第八十八条所设的”双重前置”障碍,

使纳税人对税务行政行为的司法救济不再以预先缴纳争议税款或提供担保为前提;并参照

《行政诉讼法》对一般行政行为的程序要求,将税务行政程序的透明度、可预期性与可救

济性提升至与其他行政领域相当的水平。

本党主张在财政分权层面,重新审视 1994 年分税制改革以来的中央地方财政关系,使地

方政府不必通过罚没与追缴维持基本运转,从而从根源上消除”远洋捕捞”式执法的制度激

励。

本党认为,上述五项主张并非孤立的政策建议,而是构成一个有机整体的宪政改革议程。

其核心理念是:民营企业的尊严与中国公民的自由不可分割。一个不能在宪法上保护私人

创造与劳动果实的国家,最终也无法在宪法上保护任何公民的基本权利。

九、结语

Marshall 在两百年前的判词中所揭示的,是任何政府都可能面临的诱惑——以税收之名行

毁灭之实;Holmes 在一个世纪之后的修正中所提供的,是约束这一诱惑的制度回应——

独立违宪审查。介于二者之间的,是现代立宪国家两个世纪以来的全部法治经验:征税权

必须存在,但必须被关进宪法的笼子里。

今日中国民营企业所面临的,并不仅仅是某几个地方税务部门的执法瑕疵,也不仅仅是某

一时段内财政压力下的临时举措,而是整个宪法与税法体系对征税权边界的系统性失守。

这一失守的代价,最终将由整个国家的经济活力、社会信任与公民自由来共同承担。中国

民主党愿意以此文作为长期论述的开端,并郑重邀请海内外法学界、经济学界与公民社

会,共同参与到这一关乎中国未来宪法形态的根本性讨论之中。

2026 年 5 月 16 日

注释

1. McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 431 (1819). 2. Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429 (1895); 158 U.S. 601 (1895). 3. Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920). 4. National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012). 5. Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U.S. 218, 223 (1928) (Holmes, J., dissenting). 6. Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189, 207–208 (1920). 7. NFIB v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519, 561 (2012) (Roberts, C.J.). 8. 《中华人民共和国立法法》(2023 年修正)第八条第六项。

9. 《中华人民共和国税收征收管理法》(2015 年修正)第五十二条。

10. 《中华人民共和国行政诉讼法》(2017 年修正)第十二条第一款第六项。

11. 《中华人民共和国立法法》(2023 年修正)第九十三条。

12. 最高人民法院《人民法院充分发挥审判职能作用保护产权和企业家合法权益典型案

例(第二批)》,2018 年 12 月发布。

13. 维维股份补税公告、博汇股份停产公告、藏格矿业补税案例,源自 2024 年 6 月中

国大陆媒体(澎湃新闻、第一财经)公开报道及上市公司公告。

14. 国家税务总局宁波市镇海区税务局 2024 年 6 月 14 日通报。

15. 《中华人民共和国税收征收管理法》(2015 年修正)第八十八条第一款。

16. 国家税务总局对”倒查三十年”传闻的回应,2024 年 6 月 18 日,载人民日报、央广

网。

17. 中华人民共和国财政部 2025 年 1 月 24 日新闻发布。

18. 财政部 2026 年 1 月 30 日全年财政收支情况发布会。

19. Klaus Vogel, Der Finanz- und Steuerstaat, in: J. Isensee/P. Kirchhof (Hrsg.), Handbuch

des Staatsrechts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bd. II (3. Aufl. 2004), § 30. 20. 《关于 2024 年中央和地方预算执行情况与 2025 年中央和地方预算草案的报告》,

2025 年 3 月 5 日提交十四届全国人大三次会议审查。

21. 华生教授评论,载其 2024 年 6 月 20 日个人微博。

22. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., 118 U.S. 394 (1886).

编辑：胡丽莉 翻译：彭小梅

“The Power to Tax Is the Power to Destroy”— A Brief Discussion on the Institutional Predicament of Chinese Private Enterprises

Zheng Cunzhu

Abstract: Starting from the constitutional proposition that “the power to tax involves the power to destroy,” this article analyzes the phenomenon of “retroactive tax investigations spanning thirty years” in China, reveals the impact of uncontrolled taxing power on private property rights and the rule-of-law order, and proposes directions for constitutional reform.

I. Raising the Question

In 1819, U.S. Chief Justice John Marshall established a proposition that still occupies a central position in American constitutional doctrine in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland — “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.”¹ On the surface, this proposition served the argument concerning the constitutionality of state taxation of federal institutions under the principle of federal supremacy (Supremacy Clause), but its deeper significance lies in revealing a universal constitutional theory problem: the power to tax is not a neutral fiscal technical instrument, but a form of state power that inherently contains coercive, shaping, and even destructive characteristics. In the two centuries of American constitutional case law after Marshall, including Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. (1895) concerning disputes over direct taxes,² Eisner v. Macomber (1920) regarding the constitutional definition of the concept of “income,”³ and National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) concerning the re-clarification of the boundary between taxing power and commerce regulatory power,⁴ all revolved around the core proposition of “the constitutional boundaries of taxing power.”

This article intends to take the Marshall proposition as the analytical starting point, combine a comparison between the Chinese and American constitutional and tax law systems, examine contemporary China’s tax practices — especially the “retroactive thirty-year investigations” phenomenon that has drawn widespread attention since 2024 — and argue that: in an institutional environment lacking constitutional review, lacking stable constitutional protection for private property rights, and lacking substantive implementation of the principle against retroactive application of law, China’s taxing power is systematically crossing the boundaries established by constitutionalism and tax legality, sliding toward the realm of “destruction” warned of by Marshall.

As Chairman of the China Democratic Party Federation, the author, in this article, not only attempts to provide a jurisprudential diagnosis at the legal theory level, but also hopes to express this party’s basic constitutional position on private economy issues: private property rights and enterprise freedom are not accessories to economic efficiency, but organic components of constitutional order and citizens’ fundamental rights.

II. The Jurisprudential Meaning of the Marshall Proposition and Its Modern Revision

To understand today’s tax predicament in China, it is necessary first to return to the jurisprudential structure of the Marshall proposition itself. In the McCulloch case, Marshall dealt with the specific dispute of whether the State of Maryland could tax the federal Bank of the United States, but the true strength of his reasoning lay in revealing the dual character of taxing power. On the one hand, taxation is the fiscal foundation for the operation of any modern state; on the other hand, taxation technically has no inherent upper limit — once the tax collector acquires unconstrained discretionary power, it can effectively eliminate the taxed subject through tax rates, tax bases, retroactive periods, enforcement methods, and other means. Marshall therefore proposed that a subject capable of unlimited taxation is equivalent to possessing the power of life and death over the taxed subject.

This proposition received a famous revision in the twentieth century from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. In his dissenting opinion in Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi (1928), Holmes stated: “The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.”⁵ Holmes’ revision did not deny Marshall’s insight, but rather, while acknowledging its potential danger, pointed out that an independent constitutional review mechanism is the key institutional device restraining the destructive nature of taxing power. This proposition was repeatedly confirmed in subsequent cases: in Eisner v. Macomber, the Supreme Court rejected Congress’s practice of treating stock dividends as “income” for taxation, explicitly stating that the Constitution’s limitation on the concept of “income” could not be arbitrarily broken by legislative power;⁶ in NFIB v. Sebelius, although the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act on the grounds of “taxing power,” the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts simultaneously clearly stated: “Even the broadest of these powers is subject to limits.”⁷

From this, one may summarize the basic paradigm by which modern constitutional states handle taxing power: taxing power must exist, but it must be constrained by a set of independent, accountable, and remediable legal mechanisms. Specifically, this paradigm contains at least four institutional elements: the principle of tax legality (Legality Principle, nullum tributum sine lege), the principle against retroactive application of law (Non-retroactivity, lex prospicit, non respicit), judicial review of tax legislation (Judicial Review of Tax Legislation), and due process of tax enforcement (Due Process of Tax Enforcement). These four elements are precisely the key reference system for observing today’s Chinese tax system.

III. The Form and Substance of China’s Current Constitutional and Tax Law Framework

From the perspective of written text, China’s current legal system is not entirely without formal arrangements corresponding to the four elements mentioned above. Article 56 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China stipulates that “citizens of the People’s Republic of China have the duty to pay taxes in accordance with the law,” while Article 13, Paragraph 1 stipulates that “citizens’ lawful private property is inviolable.” Article 8, Item 6 of the Legislation Law of the People’s Republic of China explicitly lists “the establishment of tax categories, the determination of tax rates, and other basic tax collection and administration systems” as matters that may only be prescribed by laws passed by the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee, constituting the Chinese-law version of tax legality.⁸ Article 52 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China specifically provides for the tax recovery period: where taxes are unpaid or underpaid due to the responsibility of the tax authority, the recovery period is three years; where taxes are unpaid or underpaid due to taxpayer calculation errors or other mistakes, the recovery period is three years and may under special circumstances be extended to five years; for tax evasion, tax resistance, and tax fraud, there is no limitation period for recovery.⁹ Article 12 of the Administrative Litigation Law of the People’s Republic of China explicitly includes “decisions made by administrative organs regarding collection, requisition, and compensation” within the scope of accepted cases.¹⁰

Judging solely from the text, the above arrangements appear to constitute a relatively complete framework of “formal rule of law.” However, the problem lies precisely in the fact that this framework suffers from four systematic defects in substantive operation, making it difficult to perform a genuine restraining function.

The first defect lies in the absence of a constitutional review mechanism. Although Article 62, Item 2 of the Chinese Constitution authorizes the National People’s Congress to “supervise the implementation of the Constitution,” and Article 67 authorizes the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to “interpret the Constitution and supervise its implementation,” China does not possess a constitutional review institution in the functional sense — there is neither a judicial review model like that of the U.S. federal Supreme Court, nor a centralized review model like constitutional courts in Germany, Austria, or Taiwan. The result is that even if a certain tax legislation or tax enforcement act substantively violates the property-rights protection of Article 13 of the Constitution, citizens and enterprises lack a judicial channel through which to seek annulment or correction of the unconstitutional act. Holmes’s institutional promise that “while this Court sits, the power to tax is not the power to destroy” is therefore structurally suspended in the Chinese legal context.

The second defect lies in the unequal constitutional status of private property rights. Article 12 of the Constitution states that “socialist public property is sacred and inviolable,” while Article 13’s wording concerning private property is merely “inviolable.” The textual difference between “sacred and inviolable” and “inviolable” is not purely semantic, but reflects a fundamental constitutional hierarchy of property rights. Once this hierarchy enters concrete administrative and judicial practice, it naturally evolves into an enforcement tendency unfavorable to private enterprises — because when public property and private property conflict, the constitutional text itself has already preset a tilted balance.

The third defect lies in the substantive hollowing out of tax legality. Although Article 8 of the Legislation Law lists the basic tax system as a matter reserved for legislation, in actual practice a large number of tax rules are determined through administrative regulations of the State Council, departmental rules of the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration, and even lower-level normative documents. More importantly, interpretive power over tax policy is highly concentrated within the tax administration authorities themselves — the same tax provision may receive completely different interpretations in different localities and periods. This phenomenon means that although “tax legality” is formally maintained, substantively it has evolved into “tax administration legality.”

The fourth defect lies in the substantive collapse of the principle against retroactive application of law. Article 93 of the Legislation Law in principle stipulates that “laws, administrative regulations, local regulations, autonomous regulations, separate regulations, and rules shall not have retroactive effect.”¹¹ Yet the “retroactive thirty-year investigations” phenomenon since 2024 demonstrates that even without direct retroactive application of new laws to old conduct, tax authorities can still retrospectively issue unfavorable evaluations of historical enterprise conduct by “reinterpreting” existing tax provisions. Formally, this practice avoids the prohibition in Article 93 of the Legislation Law; substantively, however, it fully achieves the legal effect of retroactivity. In its Typical Cases of the People’s Courts Fully Performing Judicial Functions to Protect Property Rights and Entrepreneurs’ Lawful Rights and Interests (Second Batch), the Supreme People’s Court once invoked “strictly following principles such as non-retroactivity, legality of crimes and punishments, and applying the old law or the lighter law between old and new laws,”¹² but this statement appeared only in the “typical significance” explanation of guiding cases and lacks normative binding force.

IV. “Retroactive Thirty-Year Investigations” as an Institutional Symptom: A Jurisprudential Analysis

In June 2024, listed company V V Food & Beverage Co., Ltd. announced that its former controlling subsidiary Hubei Zhijiang Liquor Industry had been required to repay more than 85 million yuan in consumption tax covering the years 1994 to 2009, with a retroactive period spanning thirty years. The reason this incident quickly evolved from a listed-company announcement into a nationwide topic was that it was not an isolated case. During the same period, Bohui Group announced a production shutdown after being ordered to repay nearly 500 million yuan in taxes; Zangge Mining was retroactively investigated for twenty years and required to repay 188 million yuan in taxes and late fees; a real estate developer in Yueyang, Hunan was retroactively investigated for twenty-five years and fined more than 900 million yuan; Hangzhou Yishang Apparel, Guangdong Taiji Group, and many other enterprises were also included in repayment lists spanning one or two decades.¹³

From a jurisprudential perspective, this phenomenon constitutes substantive breakthroughs against current Chinese law on at least three levels.

First, the issue of the recovery period. Article 52 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law stipulates a maximum recovery period of five years, with only tax evasion, tax resistance, and tax fraud exempt from limitation periods. However, the basis for repayment in “retroactive thirty-year investigation” cases is often not a clear accusation of tax evasion, but rather a “reinterpretation” of historical tax policies. For example, in the Bohui case, the core dispute concerned whether its products should be taxed as “heavy aromatic derivatives” or “heavy aromatics,” which is essentially a matter of tax-law interpretation rather than tax-evasion determination.¹⁴ Under such circumstances, extending the recovery period to twenty or even thirty years has clearly exceeded the legal framework established by Article 52 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law.

Second, the issue of non-retroactivity. An enterprise that operated compliantly in 1994 according to the tax laws, local policies, and collection practices of the time is thirty years later required to repay taxes according to a 2024 interpretation — this substantively constitutes a violation of the principle of “non-retroactivity” established by Article 93 of the Legislation Law. Even if tax authorities argue that they are still applying the law that existed in 1994, their “new interpretation” of that law itself already constitutes a substantively new norm, and applying this new norm to conduct predating the norm is substantively no different from retroactive application.

Third, the issue of due process. In many “retroactive investigation” cases, enterprises were required to repay enormous sums within extremely short periods, while lacking effective prior channels to challenge tax authority determinations. Although Article 12 of the Administrative Litigation Law includes tax administrative acts within accepted cases, Article 88 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law simultaneously stipulates that taxpayers dissatisfied with tax authority tax decisions must first pay the taxes or provide corresponding guarantees before applying for administrative reconsideration; only after dissatisfaction with the reconsideration decision may they file suit in the People’s Court.¹⁵ This procedural design, commonly called “double preconditions” within the industry, substantively constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to judicial relief for small and medium-sized enterprises facing tax claims of hundreds of millions of yuan — enterprises must first bear financial pressure that may bankrupt them before earning an opportunity for relief.

In its June 18, 2024 response, the State Taxation Administration denied the existence of “nationwide, industry-wide, or concentrated” tax inspections or arrangements for “retroactive investigations spanning twenty or thirty years,” while simultaneously acknowledging that the above repayments were “normal performance of duties by tax departments according to law and regulations.”¹⁶ From a jurisprudential perspective, this statement deserves careful reading: while denying “unified deployment,” it admitted “individual legality.” However, when dozens or even hundreds of similar cases erupt in a short period, and the affected parties are highly concentrated among private enterprises, the official narrative of “individual legality” itself faces serious legal-theoretical questioning — because due process guarantees not only formal legality in individual cases, but also the predictability, consistency, and equality of legal application.

V. The Mutual Reinforcement of Fiscal Structure and Rule-of-Law Regression

To understand why the above legal breakdown occurred, one must go beyond purely legal texts and enter analysis of fiscal structure. According to data published by the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China, national tax revenue in 2024 was 17.4972 trillion yuan, down 3.4% from the previous year; meanwhile, national non-tax revenue reached 4.473 trillion yuan, an increase of 25.4%, among which revenue from fines and confiscations rose 14.8%.¹⁷ Entering 2025, national general public budget revenue declined by 1.7%, but local-level fiscal revenue still maintained 2.4% growth.¹⁸ This set of data reveals a structurally significant fiscal shift: normal tax bases continue shrinking, while “extraordinary income” represented by fines, repayments, and supplementary taxation is becoming a key pillar for local governments to maintain revenue growth.

This shift has profound institutional roots. The 1994 tax-sharing reform centralized major tax sources under the central government, causing local finances to rely heavily for long periods on land-transfer revenue. With the deep adjustment of the real estate market since 2021, the land-finance model became unsustainable, and local governments faced unprecedented fiscal deficits. Under this pressure, tax recoveries, administrative fines, and cross-regional enforcement gradually evolved into de facto fiscal compensation mechanisms.

From a jurisprudential perspective, the corrosive effect of this fiscal structural pressure on tax rule-of-law is dual. On the one hand, it distorts the internal motivation of tax enforcement from “collection according to law” into “collection according to quotas” — exactly the opposite of German public-law scholar Klaus Vogel’s classic proposition that “the primary function of tax law lies in restraining state taxing power, not authorizing state taxing power.”¹⁹ On the other hand, it gives local governments’ dependence on “extraordinary income” a self-reinforcing character: once fines and recoveries become stable fiscal revenue sources, administrative organs develop internal motivations to maintain or even expand these sources, and such motivations in turn erode the restraining force of law upon their conduct.

The Chinese Communist Party itself had to include in its 2025 budget report language calling for “resolutely preventing and correcting arbitrary charges, arbitrary fines, and arbitrary apportionments.”²⁰ This statement itself constitutes official acknowledgment of existing disorder. Yet policy-level declarations without institutional constraints are insufficient to truly reverse the negative feedback cycle between fiscal pressure and rule-of-law degradation described above.

VI. Why Victims Are Highly Concentrated Among Private Enterprises: A Constitutional Explanation

Any serious analysis cannot avoid a concrete question: why are the victims of this round of “retroactive investigations” almost exclusively private enterprises? Professor Hua Sheng of Southeast University wrote after a closed-door seminar in June 2024 that participating experts generally believed “almost all those investigated were private enterprises.”²¹ The explanation for this phenomenon cannot be entirely attributed to accidental bias at the enforcement level, but must instead be sought within the deep logic of China’s constitutional structure.

First is the unequal constitutional status of property rights already discussed above. The textual distinction between Article 12’s “sacred and inviolable” and Article 13’s “inviolable” constitutes a constitutional hierarchy of property rights. The concrete manifestation of this hierarchy in judicial and administrative practice is that state-owned assets receive stronger procedural protection, while private assets lack equivalent constitutional shields when facing administrative actions such as tax recoveries.

Second is the substantive absence of the principle of equal protection. Article 33, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution stipulates that “all citizens of the People’s Republic of China are equal before the law.” However, the scope of this equal-protection clause has long been limited to individual citizens and has not clearly extended to equal protection between corporate entities — whether state-owned enterprises and private enterprises enjoy equal legal status in tax enforcement still lacks clear constitutional interpretation and judicial precedent support. This gap forms a notable institutional disparity compared with the evolution of the Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, where enterprises were included within the scope of protection through precedents such as Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. (1886).²²

Third is the long-term shift in policy orientation. From the controversy surrounding the so-called “withdrawal of the private economy” theory in 2018, to the successive strong regulation since 2021 targeting industries dominated by private capital such as private tutoring, internet platforms, and real estate, and then to the emergence of the “retroactive thirty-year investigation” phenomenon since 2024, one may observe a clear policy trajectory. The constitutional reflection of this trajectory is that the basic economic system established by Article 6 of the Constitution — “public ownership as the mainstay, with the common development of multiple forms of ownership” — in actual operation always preserves the potential priority of “public ownership as the mainstay” over “multiple forms of ownership,” rendering the private economy structurally vulnerable in institutional status.

VII. Historical Reference: 1953 and 2024

Any analysis of current phenomena can hardly avoid one historical reference point — the public-private partnership movement of 1956. According to oral historical materials from exiled Shanghai entrepreneur Hu Liren, before the formal launch of public-private partnership in 1956, Shanghai business circles had already experienced a large-scale “account inspection” campaign around 1953.²³ Three years later, public-private partnership incorporated private industries overnight into the category of “public” with almost no capital contribution from the state.

History does not simply repeat itself, but institutional logic often rhymes. Between the “account inspections” of 1953 and the “retroactive thirty-year investigations” of 2024, there exists a structural similarity worthy of serious discussion — namely, how administrative mechanisms of property redistribution gradually advance under the cloak of legality when political power lacks constitutional restraints and constitutional review balances regarding private property. This party does not claim that China today will necessarily reenact the script of 1956, but this party believes that unless the current operating model of taxing power is fundamentally constrained constitutionally, the risk of this historical rhyme cannot simply be excluded in jurisprudential terms.

VIII. This Party’s Constitutional Position

Based on the above analysis, the China Democratic Party’s basic constitutional positions on private economy issues may be summarized as follows.

This party advocates, at the constitutional text level, eliminating through constitutional amendment procedures the property-rights hierarchy between Article 12’s “sacred and inviolable” and Article 13’s “inviolable,” so that private property may obtain constitutional protection fully equal to public property; and explicitly including corporate entities within the scope of application of Article 33’s equal-protection clause.

This party advocates, at the level of constitutional review, establishing a constitution-review institution in the functional sense — whether adopting a specialized constitutional court model or granting constitutional review power to the Supreme People’s Court, the core lies in making the property-rights protection of Article 13 and the equal protection of Article 33 genuinely judicially enforceable, thereby gradually realizing within the Chinese legal context the institutional promise described by Justice Holmes: “while this Court sits, the power to tax is not the power to destroy.”

This party advocates, at the level of tax legislation, strictly implementing the legislative-reservation principle in Article 8 of the Legislation Law, restricting administrative organs from substantively altering the basic tax system through departmental rules and normative documents; simultaneously incorporating into legislation explicit limits on the recovery period under Article 52 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law — even in cases of tax evasion — in order to eliminate interpretive space for “unlimited recovery periods.”

This party advocates, at the due-process level, abolishing the “double precondition” obstacle established by Article 88 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law, so that judicial remedies for taxpayers against tax administrative acts no longer depend on prior payment of disputed taxes or provision of guarantees; and, by reference to the procedural requirements for ordinary administrative acts under the Administrative Litigation Law, elevating the transparency, predictability, and remediability of tax administrative procedures to levels comparable with other administrative fields.

This party advocates, at the level of fiscal decentralization, reexamining the central-local fiscal relationship established since the 1994 tax-sharing reform, so that local governments need not maintain basic operations through fines and recoveries, thereby fundamentally eliminating the institutional incentives behind “deep-sea fishing”-style enforcement.

This party believes that the above five propositions are not isolated policy recommendations, but constitute an organic constitutional reform agenda. Its core idea is: the dignity of private enterprises is inseparable from the freedom of Chinese citizens. A state unable constitutionally to protect private creation and the fruits of labor will ultimately also be unable constitutionally to protect the fundamental rights of any citizen.

IX. Conclusion

What Marshall revealed in his judgment two hundred years ago was a temptation that any government may face — carrying out destruction in the name of taxation; what Holmes provided in his revision a century later was the institutional response restraining this temptation — independent constitutional review. Between the two lies the entirety of the rule-of-law experience accumulated by modern constitutional states over two centuries: taxing power must exist, but it must be locked within the cage of the Constitution.

What Chinese private enterprises face today is not merely enforcement defects by several local tax departments, nor merely temporary measures taken under fiscal pressure during a particular period, but rather a systemic collapse of the constitutional and tax-law system regarding the boundaries of taxing power. The cost of this collapse will ultimately be borne collectively by the economic vitality, social trust, and civic freedom of the entire nation. The China Democratic Party is willing to take this article as the beginning of a long-term discussion, and solemnly invites legal academia, economics circles, and civil society both inside and outside China to jointly participate in this fundamental discussion concerning the future constitutional form of China.

May 16, 2026

Editor: Hu Lili Translator: Peng Xiaomei