CHINA would roll out a resources tax across the country over the next five years as the Central Government tried to boost local government income and reduce reliance on land sales, domestic media said yesterday.
The Central Government would also overhaul taxes levied on high-income earners and push forward real estate tax reforms, the China Daily said, quoting finance minister Xie Xuren. Further details were not provided.
The resources tax, which was introduced in the far-western Xinjiang region in June to help save energy and cut emissions, would be extended to the rest of the country by 2015, the report said.
Energy producers in Xinjiang have been ordered to pay a 5 percent levy on the sales value of crude oil and natural gas. The tax is expected to boost government coffers by billions of yuan every year.
The resources tax is part of reforms aimed at giving local governments more revenue so they are less reliant on land sales to developers for funding, which has hampered government efforts to cool the red-hot real estate market.(SD-Agencies)
