Assessment of Chinese Fiscal Transparency at Provincial Level in 2016

Lü Kaibo, Deng Shulian, Yang Danfang

Journal of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Vol. 19, Issue 01, pp. 13 - 23 (2017)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.jsufe.2017.01.002

Abstract

The highest, lowest and average scores of fiscal transparency at provincial level in 2016 show a steady upward trend and there is a phenomenon that more than one province exceeds the passing score for the first time, but the average score of 31 provinces is only 42.25, and the whole transparency is still very low. Owing to great discretionary power possessed by local governments in terms of budget and final accounts information disclosure, the scores of fiscal transparency differ with provinces. As for the survey results, the information element with the highest score is attitudes and responsibilities of the polled, followed by general public budget, assets information of state-owned enterprises, budget for government-managed funds, budget for stateowned assets, budget for social insurance funds and sector budget; the information disclosure of special financial accounts and government balance sheet is the worst, and special financial accounts are the only element with decreasing score. In order to construct normative and transparent modern budget system and make full use of the active role of fiscal information disclosure in the advancement of the reform of fiscal & tax system and other fields, it is necessary to abide by the principle of "openness as the norm and no-openness as an exception" to formulate the negative list of governmental budget and final accounts information disclosure and get out of the low-level fiscal transparency dilemma based on the clarification of open and confidential boundaries.

Keywords

fiscal transparency; modern budget system; negative list