China tax revenues up 22 percent in 2006

BEIJING - China's tax revenues soared 22 percent in 2006, the government said Tuesday, amid surging economic growth and official efforts to increase tax collections from private industry.

Revenues in 2006 totaled 3.8 billion yuan ($480 billion), the State Administration of Taxation said on its Web site.

That increase came on top of a 20 percent surge in tax revenues in 2005, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The tax boom has been driven by sizzling economic growth that was expected to top 10 percent in 2006 and by efforts to collect more taxes from foreign and private Chinese businesses.

Private investment accounts for most of China's economic growth and job creation. Tax collections from private businesses are believed to be growing even faster than total revenues, but the tax agency's one-sentence statement did not give details.

The 2006 tax figure does not include import tariffs and taxes on land use and real estate transactions, the reports said.

Those items should add a substantial amount to revenues due to an import boom in recent years and rapid growth in real estate investment.