FILE PHOTO: A school and residential buildings under construction are seen at Yanan New Zone, Shaanxi province, China January 3, 2019. REUTERS/Yawen Chen/File Photo
March 8, 2019
BEIJING (Reuters) – China will “focus energy” on implementing major legislative items this year including a property tax, the head of the country’s largely rubber-stamp parliament said on Friday.
China has considered a property tax for more than a decade, with market speculation of its implementation rearing its head every few years.
But the idea of a tax has met with push-back from stakeholders, including local governments that rely heavily on land sales as a key source of financing.
Addressing parliament, Li Zhanshu, who is also the third-most senior Communist Party leader, said the legislature “will focus our energies on effectively implementing major legislative items”, including a property tax.
All the legislative items need to be expedited so that they are completed on schedule, he said, without giving details.
Pilot property tax schemes were introduced in cities such as Shanghai and Chongqing, but the glacial progress to roll it out nationwide has drawn criticism as home prices continued to rise.
In October last year, the official Xinhua news agency reported that a “long-term mechanism” for the property market – including the potential introduction of a nationwide property tax – is being studied.
Prices of homes in major Chinese cities have stabilized in the past year following several waves of purchase curbs to deter speculators.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard, Ryan Woo and Yawen Chen; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
