一个很重要、但经常被忽略的原因，是税制激励。
中国现行增值税是中央和地方共享税。2016年营改增后，地方分享比例从25%提高到50%，而地方拿到的这部分收入，仍然很大程度上跟企业纳税地绑定。换句话说，一家汽车厂、电池厂、化工厂落在哪里，哪里不仅拿GDP、就业和投资，也能拿到持续的增值税税源。
这会自然强化地方政府的制造业偏好。
假设一个新工厂每年创造10亿元应缴增值税。过去地方可能只分到2.5亿元，2016年以后可以分到5亿元。再叠加企业所得税、城建税及各种附加，一个大型制造项目对地方财政的价值非常高。
于是地方政府最合理的行为，就是抢工厂、抢产能、抢总部、给土地、给融资、建产业园。单个地方这样做完全理性，但全国所有地方一起这样做，就容易形成重复投资和过剩产能。
反过来，一个居民多消费1000元，对当地政府的财政收益却没有那么直接。
比如上海居民买一辆安徽生产的车，制造企业缴纳的增值税税源主要仍跟企业纳税地相关。上海创造了最终需求，却未必能像生产地一样直接获得对应税收。
这就是中国税制一个很重要的结构性特征：
地方财政更奖励“生产发生在哪里”，而不是“消费发生在哪里”。
其实“消费地”并不一定难定义。实体商品可以按最终收货地，线下消费可以按门店所在地，汽车可以按上牌地；数字订阅没有收货地址，也可以按信用卡或支付账户的账单/KYC地址归属。规则不需要做到哲学意义上的100%准确，只要统一、稳定、可验证即可。
因此，中国并不一定需要简单加税。可以降低一部分现有VAT，同时把对应税率改成按最终消费地归属的sales tax；或者更简单，把现有地方VAT的一部分从“纳税地分配”改成“消费地分配”。
核心不是税叫什么名字，而是地方政府面对什么激励。
如果新增一座工厂能明显增加地方财政收入，而新增100亿元居民消费却不能，那么地方政府自然会继续优先招商、投资和扩产。
所以中国“重投资、重制造、轻消费”不仅是产业政策问题，也有很强的财政制度基础。
想真正刺激消费，除了给居民发钱，更重要的是让地方政府也能从消费增长中赚钱。
One important but often overlooked reason is the incentive created by China’s tax system.
China’s VAT is shared between the central and local governments. After the 2016 VAT reform, the local share rose from 25% to 50%. Crucially, much of that local revenue is still tied to where the company pays tax. So when an auto plant, battery factory, or chemical plant locates in a city, the local government gets not only GDP, jobs, and investment, but also a recurring VAT tax base.
That naturally strengthens the incentive to attract manufacturing.
If a new factory generates RMB1 billion of VAT a year, the local government might have received roughly RMB250 million before 2016 and RMB500 million afterward. Add corporate income tax, urban maintenance tax, and other surcharges, and a large manufacturing project becomes extremely valuable to local finances.
The rational response is obvious: compete for factories, capacity, headquarters, industrial parks, land investment, and financing support. That may be rational for each individual locality, but when every locality behaves the same way, the national result can be duplicated investment and excess capacity.
Consumption works differently.
If a Shanghai resident buys a car produced in Anhui, much of the VAT-related local revenue still follows the producer’s tax location. Shanghai creates the final demand, but it does not necessarily capture the corresponding marginal tax revenue in the same way Anhui does.
This creates a structural bias:
Local fiscal systems reward where production happens more than where consumption happens.
A consumption-based system does not necessarily have to be technically complicated. Physical goods could be sourced based on the final delivery address, offline services based on the store location, and cars based on the registration location. For digital subscriptions with no shipping address, the tax could be assigned using the billing or KYC address of the credit card or payment account.
The rule does not need to identify the philosophically perfect “true” place of consumption. It only needs to be uniform, stable, and verifiable.
China therefore would not necessarily need to raise taxes. One option would be to reduce part of the existing VAT and replace it with a sales tax allocated according to the final place of consumption. An even simpler option would be to keep the VAT system intact but redistribute part of the local VAT share based on consumption rather than the producer’s tax location.
The key question is not what the tax is called. It is what behavior the fiscal system rewards.
If building another factory clearly increases local government revenue, while another RMB10 billion of household consumption does not, local governments will naturally continue to prioritize investment, manufacturing, and capacity expansion.
China’s bias toward investment and manufacturing is therefore not only an industrial-policy issue. It is also embedded in the fiscal system.
If China wants to stimulate consumption structurally, it is not enough to give consumers more money. Local governments also need to make more money when consumption rises.