With the sustained efforts of the tax reduction policy, the cumulative growth rate of tax revenue has been declining since this year, and for the first time in August, it has changed from positive to negative.

On August 17th, the Ministry of Finance announced its fiscal revenue and expenditure. From January to August, the total revenue of the national general public budget was 137.61 billion yuan, an increase of 3.2% over the same period last year. Among them, the core national tax revenue is 117.13 billion yuan, down 0.1% year on year, which is very rare.

_Tax revenue is regarded as a barometer of the economy, but the main reason for the decline in tax revenue is the reduction brought about by large-scale tax cuts, and China's economy is still steadily improving. As the large-scale tax reduction reduces the burden of enterprises and stimulates market vitality, it will help the economy to be healthy and stable.

_From the specific tax revenue situation in the previous eight months, the first largest tax category of domestic value-added tax increased by 4.7% year-on-year, continuing the previous slowdown trend, compared with the same period last year, this growth rate fell by 8.9 percentage points. After all, this year's tax reduction "main course" is the value-added tax reduction brought about by deepening the reform of value-added tax. The specific measures are mainly to reduce the tax rate of manufacturing industry by a large margin.

_The scale of tax reduction is second only to VAT in personal income tax (hereinafter referred to as individual tax). In the first eight months of this year, individual tax fell by 30.1% year-on-year, the largest decline. The tax reduction of individual taxes is mainly due to the increase of the starting point, the expansion of the range of low-grade tax rates and the introduction of six special additional deductions.

_The growth rate of enterprise income tax, the second largest tax category, has also slowed down significantly. In the first eight months of this year, the growth rate was only 3.6%, which was 9.3 percentage points lower than that of the same period last year. It is mainly affected by the increase of the pre-tax deduction ratio of R&D expenditure, the inclusive tax relief for small and micro enterprises, and the year-on-year decline in corporate profits.

_. Influenced by the VAT tax rate of imported goods and the complex foreign trade situation, the VAT, consumption tax and tariff revenue of imported goods have declined in varying degrees. Thirty-one provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) top-notch halving of local "six taxes and two fees" (i.e. resource tax, urban maintenance and construction tax, property tax, urban land use tax, stamp tax, land occupation tax, education fee surcharge, local education fee surcharge), also led to a 0.4% decrease in income in the previous August compared with the same period last year.

In order to alleviate the impact of tax reduction on fiscal revenue, non-tax revenue continued to grow at a high rate this year to compensate for the reduction.

From January to August, non-tax revenue was 1992.7 billion yuan, an increase of 427.6 billion yuan, or 27.3%. The growth rate is relatively high, mainly because the central and local finance actively tap the potential, multi-channel activation of state-owned resources assets to increase revenue.

Among them, the operating income of state-owned capital in the first eight months of non-tax revenue increased by 288 billion yuan, an increase of 5.7 times over the same period last year, and the paid use income of state-owned resources (assets) increased by 94.5 billion yuan, an increase of 21.3%. These two incomes have become the key to the rapid growth of non-tax revenue.

_Non-tax revenue related to fee reduction continued to decline, for example, in the first eight months, special income including education fee surcharge dropped by 2%. This means that the fee reduction policy has come to fruition.

_Tax reduction and fee reduction are one side of active fiscal policy, while maintaining a certain amount of expenditure is the other side of active fiscal policy.

From January to August, the total expenditure of the national general public budget was 15306.9 billion yuan, an increase of 8.8% over the same period of last year. Although the growth rate of fiscal expenditure continues to decline, the growth rate of fiscal expenditure is obviously higher than that of income.

From the main expenditure subjects, in the first eight months, the demand for funds in key areas has been better guaranteed, and the expenditure on infrastructure has been sustained. For example, transportation expenditure has increased by 16.1% year-on-year. People's livelihood security expenditure is also strong, such as education expenditure increased by 9.2% year-on-year.

_As large-scale tax and fee cuts affect fiscal revenue, resulting in a sustained decline in revenue, but rigid expenditure remains unchanged, the Ministry of Finance has actively taken a number of measures to ensure fiscal revenue and expenditure balance, in order to support the policy of tax and fee cuts to the ground.

For example, the increase in profits paid by specific state-owned financial institutions and central enterprises by the central government and the increase in dividend income of some central financial enterprises over the same period last year have supported the high growth of national non-tax revenue and compensated for the tax reduction. The central government has taken the lead in reducing general expenditure and urged local governments to reduce it by more than 10%. The funds saved will be given priority to ensuring wages, operation and basic people's livelihood. The central government has intensified its efforts and speed to allocate 7.5 trillion yuan of transfer payments to local governments, thus alleviating the contradiction between revenue and expenditure at the grass-roots level.