Once a diehard troublemaker for local officials to deal with when
collecting rural taxes, Xiao Xihai, a peasant in Wuwei County of
eastern China's
Anhui
Province, has dramatically changed to be a model taxpayer
thanks to the rural tax reforms.
Three years ago, Xiao not only refused to pay any taxes or fees,
but lobbied neighboring villagers to refuse payment too.
Nowadays, Xiao is usually the first in his village to pay rural
taxes, and following his example, 95 percent of the village's
annual taxes are collected within several days.
Xiao still remembers his change of attitude in the spring of 2000,
when Chinese Central Government decided to let Anhui reform its
burdensome rural tax structures.
More than 40 tax categories were lifted, and households like Xiao's
were required only to pay agricultural tax. Xiao's family annual
tax bill dropped by 200 yuan (US$24).
"Before the rural tax reforms, our villagers were weighed down by
heavy arbitrary fees," Xiao said.
"Most of the tax we paid ended up in the hands of corrupt village
cadres."
New rural tax reforms set the highest tax rate at 8.4 percent of
farmers' output.
"We are the State's taxpayers now," Xiao claims, "anyone who dares
to charge one cent of arbitrary tax is breaking the law."
Two thirds of China's 1.3 billion people live in the countryside
and many of them find the double hit of low incomes and hefty taxes
too much to handle.
Analysts say it is important to continue reducing taxes and other
levies on hundreds of millions of Chinese peasants whose incomes
have lagged behind those of city dwellers.
"It is so exciting to see peasants began to increase their
awareness as the country's taxpayers," said He Kaiyin, an
agricultural expert.
"Rural taxes account for a very small proportion of China's total
1.9 trillion yuan (US$229 billion) annual financial revenue."
"But the 900 million peasants are the largest and most important
social class in the country and it is significant for social
stability and economic development to standardize rural taxes."
The lifting of arbitrary fees on peasants not only changed Anhui
farmers' attitudes towards taxpaying, but also eased the burden of
peasants in other provinces, like Zhejiang, where peasants now pay
63 percent less following tax reforms.
"We have improved the efficiency of government at grassroots level
by streamlining more than 110,000 cadres, who used to go from door
to door urging peasants to pay hefty taxes and administration
fees," said an agricultural industry official in Anhui Province who
did not want to be identified.
The heavy burden of taxes and other levies on China's peasants has
led to many clashes between villagers and local officials in recent
years, and peasants say there is more work to be done yet.
Peasants say rural tax collection should be more transparent, open,
and just.
"We should enjoy the same rights as other taxpayers," said Xu
Heqing, a peasant.
(Xinhua News Agency May 25, 2003)