The extra is enough for him to pay his children's tuition fees, giving a feeling of relief to the farmer with 1.7 hectares of land in a village in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Thanks to China's ongoing tax-for-fees reform, levies formerly imposed arbitrarily on farmers by village and township heads have been axed.

Most farmers like Ma now expect a more comfortable lifestyle as agricultural tax is now the only thing to be taken off the annual output of their farmland.

However, in cities, tax payments are becoming nerve-racking for some taxpayers because the country's resolve to eliminate tax evasion is being increasingly felt.

In a revised regulation on the implementation of China's tax collection and management law, effective as of Tuesday last week, new articles have been added to punish tax evaders more harshly. Experts say this will not only better protect the interests of taxpayers, but also maintain justice and curb increasing disparities of wealth.

Deterred by the toughened tax enforcement, a few singers, film stars and owners of private enterprises who formerly attempted to dodge individual income tax by various means are beginning to pay more readily.

Jin Renqing, director of the State Administration of Taxation, said the country's individual income tax mainly goes towards the social security fund to help the low-paid and the vulnerable.

Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that the annual income of Chinese farmers last year averaged 2,366 yuan (US$286) while that of urban dwellers was as much as 6,860 yuan (US$829).

A survey conducted last year of 40,000 urban households revealed that 42.4 per cent of the country's social assets were held by around 20 per cent of the population.

(China Daily October 23, 2002)