A recent report stating that the Beijing Municipal Government
has submitted a request to the State Administration of Taxation
(SAT) to start levying property tax has again become the focus of
public interest. But later an unnamed SAT official refuted the
report, stating that property taxes are not going to be levied in
Beijing this June.
The Guangzhou Daily cited another unnamed SAT official,
stating that the pilot program concerning "virtual property" in 10
provinces and cities including Beijing, Shenzhen, Liaoning, Jiangsu
and Tianjin has been "misunderstood." He also added that property
taxes are not likely to be levied for at least two more years.
"At present, real estate management department networks, finance
and taxation administrations are not well connected. They are not
able to share information, how could they cooperate to levy the
property tax?" the official stated, adding that levying property
tax involves joint efforts from different agencies.
Beginning in 2003, the State Administration of Taxation picked
10 provinces and cities, including Beijing, Shenzhen, Dalian,
Jiangsu and Chongqing, to levy "virtual real estate taxes": this
actually means that no money will be collected. The SAT official
said that the tax designated now as the "property tax" still has no
official name.
"The purpose of tax reform in the real estate sector is first to
unite the different taxes, such as housing property tax, urban real
estate tax and land-use tax. Another reason is to make the assessed
value of the real estate property as the basis for tax assessment
in order to solve the unreasonable basis of tax assessment in the
real estate tax system," the official said.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Yunxing, February 14, 2008)