Global circulation and local adaptation of tax models: business tax in China, 1931–1949

ABSTRACT In light of certain conceptual constructs in comparative taxation, this study examines how Chinese tax reformers chose and adopted a particular form of business tax from a variety of tax models and how they justified and implemented the new tax in the political-social-economic conditions of early twentieth-century China. By illustrating a ‘hybrid tax transplant’ at discursive, institutional, and operational levels, or in terms of justification, design, and enforcement of business taxation, it presents a case study of global circulation and national/local adoption and adaptation of a tax model in a changing tax culture in China. The study reinforces the relevance and usefulness of these concepts to historical analyses and interpretations of taxation studies in different countries and offers a comparative case for research in other contexts.