研究台灣財政史的學者曾指出日據時代臺灣的租稅結構偏重土地稅、貨 物稅及專賣收入等間接稅，但是經所得稅。學者同時指出這種租稅結構造成以農 民為主體之本島人及以工商業及高所得者為主體之在臺日本人間租稅負擔之不 公平。絕對公平的稅制本來就不存在，而臺灣既然是一個殖民地，因此本文所關 心的問題乃是臺灣租稅結構的特異性及這些特異性是經濟因素抑或政治因素所 致。綜合本文的分析，臺灣租稅結構之特異性在於重專賣收入之程度基於貨物稅 以及關稅地位之低落，而不是在於所得稅之偏低或土地稅及消費稅之偏高。所得 稅比重偏低而土地稅及消費稅比重偏高的現象是許多地區經濟發展前期共同的 特徵。關於該些特性的形成因素，根據本文的分析，可以歸納為三點。第一，在 租稅結構演進的過程中，所得稅之比重決定於經濟發展程度之高低。第二，專賣 收入之偏高是產業結構之偏頗及企業規模之狹小所造成。第三，關稅地位之低落 與臺灣為殖民地之事實有關。臺灣成為日本殖民地後，與日本之間的貿易比率大 幅提高，而這些貿易無法課征關稅，造成關稅收入無法大幅增加。可見臺灣之經 濟條件及殖民地地位皆是租稅結構形成的主要因素。

　　　　　The literature on the history of Taiwan's public finance in the Japanesecolonial period has pointed out that government relied too heavily on in-direct taxed such as land taxes, sales taxes, and profit of governmentmonopolies, but put too little weight in income taxes. This pattern of taxstructure brought about the unfairness of tax burden between Taiwanese(most of whom were farmers) and the Japanese in Taiwan (most of whomwere high income earners). Since an absolutely fair tax system does notexist and Taiwan was a colony in this period, the more interesting issuesperhaps are whether or not Taiwan's tax structure during this period isunique; what are the causes for the uniqueness; and these causes related toeconomic conditions or political status.When compared with that of prewar Japan, Taiwan's tax structure hastwo unique natures. First, profit of government monopolies was muchhigher than sales taxes. Second, the position of tariff in the whole taxstructure changed dramatically and to a very low level. The comparisonalso finds out that the uniqueness of Taiwan's tax structure was not thatthe share of income taxes was too low or the share of indirect taxes wastoo high. In fact, the ratio of Taiwan's income taxes gres faster than thatof Japan, and many countries have also experienced a stage of low ratio ofincome taxes and high ratio of indirect taxes.While economic conditions mainly and directly led to the above character-istics of Taiwan's tax structure, political dependency (i.e. the colonial posi-tion) also had its indirect effect. The economic theory, qualitative data, and the result of regression analysis conclude that the share of income taxescan be explained with the degree of economic development. As a result ofthe skewness of economic and industrial structure and the small scale ofenterprises, sales taxes could not raise to a level to meet the governmentexpenditure. In this condition, the government chose to count on the revenue of its monopoly enterprises. This study also finds out that as Taiwanbecame a colony of Japan, Taiwan's main trade partner gradually changedfrom China to Japan. Since there was no tariff imposed on the tradebetween Taiwan and Japan, the importance of tariff revenue in Taiwandeclined dramatically. The change in the market of trade directly while thechange in political status indirectly resulted in the change of the importance of tariff in the tax structure. These findings conclude that Taiwan'stax structure in the Japanese colonial period affected by both economicand political conditions.