This year will see a hastening of reforms to China’s tax system in the hopes that it will help policymakers’ initiatives for ushering in the common prosperity called for by President Xi Jinping this week, reports China Daily.
Tax reforms will focus on improving local government levies and raising the proportion of direct taxes like income tax and property tax in the nation’s overall tax system.
“Pilot programs of the property tax are expected in three to five cities this year, to be gradually expanded afterward,” Shi Zhengwen, director of the Center for Research in Fiscal and Tax Law at the China University of Political Science and Law, said to China Daily.
The property tax pilot has been in the pipeline for a while, and now a plan has been drafted for its rollout. The target cities will be those where runaway home prices are common. The tax pilot is expected to be a breakthrough, and it will likely be launched before the enaction of a new property tax law, Shi told China Daily.