特別預算不再特別？中央政府特別預算之法定事由及其影響分析

Abstract

自九二一震災災後重建特別預算以後，中央政府常態性地編列特別預算，不僅形成學者曾巨威所稱的「政策輪迴」，還伴隨了「以特別條例作為法源依據」、「排除公共債務法(下稱公債法)、預算法、財政紀律法特定條文」、「歲出多以舉債支應」等特色，不免令人為國家財政感到擔憂。又過去研究跨年度特別預算者，距今已近十年或十年有餘，在特別預算制度不太可能被刪除的情況下，本文欲對中央政府特別預算研究做一跟進，並探討長年以舉債作為財源，以及以特別條例排除特定預算控制條文適用所帶來的影響，進而提出改善建議。

本研究採用文獻分析法和次級資料分析法，以達到下述研究目的:(1)透過預算法相關文件，了解特別預算及其法定事由存在之理由、(2)爬梳40年度至111年度之特別預算相關文件，將特別預算回歸至預算法法定事由，並以90年度為基準，比較兩時期特別預算在編列事由上的差異、(3)彙整90年度以後各年度總預算歲出及舉債數額、特別預算各年度特別預算歲出預算及舉債數額、各特別預算經常門及資本門的歲入及歲出決算數額等資料，再分別從排除公債法舉債流量上限規定、預算法第23條、財政紀律法第14條第2項三個面向，探討現今特別預算實質上對於舉債和預算管控的影響。

研究結果得從兩個部分來看，首先是將特別預算回歸預算法法定要件的部分，發現過去立法者在選用法定事由時，有不夠嚴謹的問題、「不定期或數年一次之重大政事」法定事由有認定過於寬鬆的問題，以及近年特別條例中指出需按總預算方式編列和審議的特別預算，有混淆年度總預算和特別預算界線之虞。其次是從特別條例排除公債法、預算法及財政紀律法特定法條的面向來看，可能導致「法律威信受到挑戰」、「易形成舉債沉痾」、「財政透明度受到損害」、「降低預算控制效果」等多重影響。

從前述的研究發現來看，特別預算制度作為預算制度彈性措施，雖立意良好，卻已遭濫用。因此，廢除特別預算制度仍不失為一種改善國家財政的方式之一，然而，如前所述，在現今的情況下，此舉恐難以落實，故退而求其次，將特別預算回歸至預算法法定事由，不任意另立特別條例排除預算控制法規適用，並給予「不定期或數年一次之重大政事」更嚴謹的定義，甚或刪除之，同時落實財政資訊揭露，為本文提出之監督和改善方案，期能維護國家財政的永續性。

Since 921 Earthquake Post-Disaster Reconstruction Special Budget, the central government has been making special budgets on a regular basis, which not only forms what Tseng, Chu-Wei called "policy rotation", but also has the characteristics of "using special acts as the sources of law ", "excluding the application of specific provisions of The Public Debt Act, the Budget Act, and the Financial Discipline Law by special acts ", and "using debts to finance most of the expenditures", and that makes people worry about the national finance. Since the special budget system is unlikely to be abolished, this paper aims to follow up on the study of the central government's special budget, and to examine the impact of the long-term use of debt as a source of finance and the exclusion of the application of specific budgetary control provisions by special acts, and then to propose improvement suggestions.

This research adopts documentary analysis and secondary data analysis to achieve the following objectives: (1) to understand the reasons why special budgets and statutory reasons exist, (2) to revert the special budgets from 1951 to 2022 to the statutory reasons of the Budget Act, and use 2001 as a benchmark to compare the differences of special budgets in two periods, (3) to explore the current substantive impact of special budgets on debt and budget management from the three aspects (the exclusion of the debt flow ceiling requirement of The Public Debt Law, Article 23 of the budget law, and Article 14(2) of the Fiscal Discipline Law) through compiling the annual expenditure and debt raising amount of central government general budget after 2001, the annual expenditure and debt raising amount of the special budgets after 2001, as well as the annual revenue and annual expenditure of each special budget's current and capital account after 2001.

The results of the study can be viewed from two parts. Firstly, from the part of reverting the special budget to the statutory reasons of the Budget Act, we find that the legislators were not strict enough in choosing the statutory reasons in the past, the definition of the statutory reason "major political event that takes place irregularly or once every few years" are too loose, and the line between the annual general budget and the special budget will be blurred because some special acts require special budgets to be prepared and examined in the same way as general budgets. Secondly, from the perspective of excluding specific provisions of The Public Debt Act, the Budget Act, and the Financial Discipline Law by special acts, it may lead to multiple impacts, such as "challenge to the prestige of the law",” prone to incurring debt burdens ", "jeopardizing the transparency of the fiscal system" and "reducing the effectiveness of budgetary control".

Based on the findings of this study, we have found that the special budget system has been abused. Therefore, abolishing the special budget system is still one of the solutions to improve the national finance. However, as mentioned above, it may be difficult to implement such a measure under the present circumstances, so the second solution is to revert the special budget to the statutory reasons of the Budget Act, instead of arbitrarily make another special act to exclude specific budget control provisions, and to give a stricter definition to the statutory reason "major political event that takes place irregularly or once every few years", or even to delete it. To implement the financial information disclosure is also another solution proposed in this paper to maintain the financial sustainability of the country.