Hong Kong, April 28 : China is in a taxing dilemma as the country has not yet levied property tax against real estate owners, Hong Kong-based The Standard reported.
Municipal governments have been relying on land sales as their major income source. These authorities may also impose local fees and charges, but these do not include major taxes like on property.
According to The Standard, China's Ministry of National Resources recently said it has completed an enormous task to create a national real estate register.
It has taken the country a decade to come up with a unified property registration system, a rather long period of time no matter how one looks at it.
Although China is the world's second-largest economy, it is somewhat backward in certain aspects, as per The Standard.
Property tax has always been a revenue option on the central government's agenda.
Although Liu He was known to be keen to introduce property tax when he was vice premier, it has only remained an option on the agenda.
The successful compilation of a national register for all kinds of properties and land has, however, cleared a major hurdle for the central government to take further a task that has been left unfinished by the former vice premier.
It is true that policymakers are currently better positioned to launch the new tax if they so wish since the tool is ready, according to The Standard.
New York-based NTD recently reported that China's property sales remain static despite China's central bank enacting policies to stimulate the market.
According to China Real Estate Information Corporation (CRIC), there is a consensus that the real estate sector is on a downward spiral and is truly heading for an era of negative growth.
In January, the Chinese regime and the central bank introduced various policies to revive sales. Local provincial governments in China were doing everything they can to streamline the home loan application process. Many incentives were introduced to encourage more sales.
However, China's real estate market did not show the expected recovery. According to statistics from the China Index Academy on January 31, total sales of the top 100 real estate enterprises in January was 422.33 billion yuan (about USD 63 billion), down 31.7 per cent year-on-year, while equity sales in the top 100 real estate enterprises were 325.54 billion yuan (about USD 45.5 billion), down 35.2 per cent year-on-year, NTD reported.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor