Abstract: Budgeting scientificity is one of the core requirements of the modern budget system. By making use of the provincial panel data from 1997 to 2014, this paper studies the relationship between local government competition, fiscal pressure and local budgeting scientificity. The fiscal competition among local governments is to the disadvantage of tax revenue growth; there is a negative correlation between the two. Fiscal competition makes local governments bear heavy fiscal pressures; during the course of budget implementation, local governments would use the identity of land monopoly provider in order to seek excess revenue and adjust the initial budget. There is a negative correlation between the fiscal pressure in the budget year and the deviation between the initial and final budgets. The growth pressure of fiscal expenditure beyond the budget year does not involve the annual budget adjustment; there is a positive correlation between the two. Therefore, it is necessary to clear and regulate the regional preferential tax policies, to optimize actively the structure of fiscal expenditures, and to strengthen the budget supervision function of the National People’s Congress.

Key words: local government competition; fiscal pressure; budgeting scientificity; modern budget system