Tianlong Lawrence Hu | Renmin University of China (original) (raw)

Papers by Tianlong Lawrence Hu

Frontiers of Law in China, 2017

China's fiscal and taxation law reform is at a critical stage since Chinese economy development n... more China's fiscal and taxation law reform is at a critical stage since Chinese economy development needs to consider compromising interests and conflicts from all sources, such as the social benefit network, real estate industry avidity, internationalizing currencies, fostering a philanthropic culture, and growing as a leader in the world market. These undertakings all demand a modern, handy fiscal and taxation law system. On the other hand, after two decades of implementation of the 1994 tax sharing system, the original initiative of strengthening centralized control might not keep pace with the needs of balancing decentralization and local financing demands, in addition to the troublesome taxpayers' protection, tax judicature reform, and worsening environmental irregularities. Admittedly, China's fiscal and taxation law reform faces new challenges and incentives. Rigorous international tax frameworks and multi-jurisdictional cooperation drive China to respond as an international trade giant and a responsible game player. Such international tax policy orientations create another layer of incentives and necessity for China to fine-tune its domestic fiscal and taxation legal framework, ranging from promotion of free trade zones, global sourcing practice and supply chain management, renegotiation of outdated tax treaty articles, more active participation in consequential overseas investments, to WTO Protocol compliance review, and international tax dispute resolution. Therefore, this article argues that, no matter the extent to which feasible, plausible or pragmatic proposals are presented, a top level architecting and a serious pursuit to upgrade citizens' livelihood must be prioritized in

Frontiers of Law in China, 2016

Imbalanced doctor-patient conflicts and divergences such as healthcare disturbance (yinao) signif... more Imbalanced doctor-patient conflicts and divergences such as healthcare disturbance (yinao) significantly undermine the already-weakened mutual trust and lead to further deterioration of workplace safety and environment for medical professionals in China. China has to implement all sorts of efforts to cut off the hostile settings where medical disturbances are rooted and developed. Such measures should at least include sufficient remedies provided by medical insurance, refined administrative mediation mechanism, better workplace protective systems in medical institutions, and more importantly, a full-pledged framework with enforceable rules to circumvent medical disturbances and resolving medical accidents. It is necessary to stipulate administrative, civil and criminal measures to punish medical disturbers while guaranteeing medical professionals such as doctors, nurses and supporting staffs due secured medical practice. In particular, a third-party dispute resolution mechanism, an improved appraisal platform and protection of confidential information of patients and doctors should be implemented in due course. In addition to a more refined legal framework, the social, cultural and professional settings of medical practice should also be further improved by removing "revenge" attacks on Chinese hospital professionals.

Frontiers of Law in China, 2015

This article focuses on the comparisons of the tax exemption schemes in the US and China through ... more This article focuses on the comparisons of the tax exemption schemes in the US and China through a threefold discussion. Despite the tremendous development of China's nonprofit sector, not many comprehensive studies have been completed on such reforms. The tax treatment of Chinese nonprofit organizations, as a crucial component to constructing a nonprofit sector, is unsophisticated and short of practical significance. The expansion of the nonprofit sector in the past decades has resulted in many problems concerning its tax framework: incoherently defined public benefit or charity purpose of nonprofit organizations; the unavailability of an enforceable fiscal incentive system to promote charitable donations, arduous and discouraging administrative procedure of obtaining the tax exemption, burdensome requirements for the application and registration of nonprofit organizations, such as dual management, high threshold of capital endowment for foundations, and prohibition on cross-region development. Moreover, from a jurisprudential perspective, in the Chinese tax context two cautions are methodologically identified. First, the scarcity of decent comparative legal tax scholarship in general does not support quality comparison. A shortage of paradigmatic discourse shows the simultaneous existence of bluntly conflicting arguments, parallel courses, and irregularities in analysis. Second, the tax cultural traditions as well as social, political, and legal settings of a systematic tax governance framework should be included in tax comparatists' theorizations. A tax study ultimately has to be conducted from a "big-picture" perspective, in which a tax system is embedded. Otherwise, a comparative study may easily turn into a descriptive, mechanical, and perfunctory analysis. It argues that a comprehensive tax transplant effort of valued ideas and practices, although bold and uncomfortable for the recipient country at the beginning, is what China needs to build a robust nonprofit sector.

Frontiers of Law in China, 2020

Over the past two decades, China's tax law reform has become a highly valued and distinguished ar... more Over the past two decades, China's tax law reform has become a highly valued and distinguished area for earnestly advancing Chinese socialist rule of law construction. With the establishment of the principle on strengthening legality of imposing tax, as well as new settings regarding China's social and economic development, the administration and management of tax collection and protection of taxpayers' well-being gradually and vigilantly attain responsiveness from top national legislators and scholars. Meanwhile, the efforts exerted by tax administers on fighting tax evasion have been elevated on both international and domestic grounds. For example, a focal area is the evaluation and collection of presumptive tax which is a common routine for administers around the world. Moreover, the current laws and regulations on administering tax collection invite a rigorous process of revision and modification with contemporary conceptions of taxpayers' well-being. This article argues that, through the example of presumptive tax collection, the administration and management of tax collection should adhere to the basic principles of protecting taxpayers and advancing the goals of de-administrating arduous procedures to conform to new trends of social and economic development. It also proposes that the vigor and dynamics of tax collection efforts should coincide with national goals of reformulating the individual income tax collection mechanisms, solidifying the national conversion of business tax to value-added tax, matching with the new wave of bankruptcy of certain enterprises, and so forth.

University of Cincinnati Law Review, 2014

With the world’s second-largest economy at an average of nine percent gross domestic product (GDP... more With the world’s second-largest economy at an average of nine percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate over the past two decades and a rapidly growing domestic market for new products and services supported by its 1.3 billion population, it is no surprise that China continues to be one of most popular investment destinations for private equity and venture capital firms from all over the world. Following the worldwide trend of cherishing innovative, internet-based capital-raising and microfinance, crowdfunding has emerged as an indispensable approach to enlarge investments to fuel the torpid Chinese capital market.

University of Cincinnati Law Review, 2016

The development of global-sourcing practice and the evolution of global product value chains are ... more The development of global-sourcing practice and the evolution of global product value chains are in a critical stage with unprecedented issues posed by global segmentation of manufacturing and intra-group services within multinational corporations. China has gradually solidified a dominant position as the largest mass-production country and eventually seeks to expand its engagement to higher-end and more value-added services. It, therefore, is an essential partner for companies engaging in global-sourcing and product-value-chain planning. On one hand, global-sourcing development needs a soft landing by compromising interests and conflicts of all sources, which demand a modern sourcing regime. On the other hand, after two decades of development, product-value-chain creation and evolvements have entered into a new stage that requires rechecking and regrouping of all business functions, while original initiatives of strengthening fixed stereotypes will likely not properly serve the global need for capital mobility and cross-border infrastructure renovation. China's ambition to expand overseas investment and to improve its international position from a passive norm-taker to being a driver of the discourse in various international arenas encourages more forceful reforms in many fields to better serve legal solutions of new issues in global sourcing. These reforms include transfer-pricing arrangements, China's anticorruption efforts, due diligence review, intellectual property protection, technology transfer, and workplace safety and labor protection. Such efforts in discovering and resolving new legal issues again continue to be one of the focal areas for multinational corporations and Chinese legislators. Indeed, the international framework of global-sourcing coordination and multi-jurisdictional cooperation create further layers of incentives and necessity for China to fine-tune its domestic sourcing-related legal framework, ranging from promotion of free-trade zones, renegotiation of outdated tax treaty articles, more active participation in consequential overseas investments, and acknowledging international dispute resolution.

Books by Tianlong Lawrence Hu

BRICS and the Emergence of International Tax Coordination, IBFD, 2015, ISBN 9789087223045, 2015

China has risen as a key global economic development engine and player over the past three decade... more China has risen as a key global economic development engine and player over the past three decades. An outgrowth of its great economic advances is China’s gradually escalating move from being a passive norm taker to being a driver of the discourse in various international arenas, such as China’s continual efforts in reforming its international tax policies and outreaches. Since China concluded its first two tax treaties with Japan (1983) and the United States (1984), China’s tax treaty network has expanded to a system of 99 tax treaties (as of June 30, 2013), and two arrangements with its own special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau.

First, Chinese tax treaties are characterized and inspired by the hybrid influence of the UN Model and Commentaries, OECD Model and Commentaries and China’s indigenous features in terms of economic and political orientations. On one hand, China concluded different specific tax treaty provisions with developed (typically OECD members) and developing countries (South American, African and Southeast Asian states). Second, there emerges a general re-evaluation of China’s treaty position given its emergence as a growing capital exporter rather than a mere capital receiver or importer. One driver for this change is China’s weighty foreign exchange reserves, which invites the use of conduits for Chinese capital to be reinvested in China via overseas investments. Another force is that enterprises controlled by Chinese capital go abroad to invest in a myriad of enticing acquisitions and profitable businesses, putting China at the front of international tax policy negotiations. Third, with China’s reconstruction of a tax legal system, especially after the re-entry to the WTO (2000) and the enactment of the Enterprise Income Tax Law (EIT Law) (2007), tax treaties concluded thereafter exhibit noteworthy differences from those contracted in the 1980s and 1990s. For example, GAAR, CFC rules, abolishment or removal of certain tax incentives, and tax holidays were all directly raised in recent tax treaty negotiations and implementations.