Property tax status quo

Most mature market economy countries in the world levy property tax on real estate, and the possession of property is the premise of taxation.

Take the value of real estate as the tax basis. According to international practice, property tax is mostly local tax, which is a stable and important source of national finance. The names of real estate retention tax vary from country to country, and some of them are called "real estate tax", such as Austria, Poland and Netherlands Antilles. Some are called "property taxes", such as Germany, America and Chile. Some are called "local taxes" or "rates", such as New Zealand, Britain and Malaysia. China and Hongkong are directly called "property tax".

The basic framework of real estate tax reform is to combine the current property tax, urban real estate tax, land value-added tax, land transfer fee and other taxes into a unified property tax at the stage of real estate ownership, and keep the overall scale of property tax basically unchanged. In this way, once the property tax is levied, it will have a great impact on the economic behavior of local governments, consumers and speculators. Whether the collection of property tax can end the real estate war depends on whether the following three preconditions are met: the first premise is to clarify the relationship between property tax and existing taxes and fees, the second premise is to establish technical conditions to meet the collection of property tax, and the third premise is to change the current situation that most of the existing land fiscal revenue is not included in public finance with property tax.

First of all, simply put, property tax is a tax on property ownership. The current laws and regulations adopt a one-time collection of land use fees for 40 to 70 years, which leads to high purchase and transaction costs and low holding costs. Therefore, some local governments sell a lot of land in a short time and collect land dividends in the next few decades, which is the fundamental reason for the prevalence of land finance in many places. Property tax can change this reverse incentive system by distributing land income in the next 40 to 70 years. At the same time, in order to levy property tax, the government and developers also have the incentive to create a good social environment, provide sufficient public products, attract consumers to settle in the local area, and enhance the value of local real estate.

However, the legal premise of levying property tax is to cancel the one-time taxes and fees that overlap with property tax, such as land value-added tax, land transfer fee and urban real estate tax. Otherwise, the old taxes will not be removed, and the new taxes will come again. For consumers, it is double taxation, which is unreasonable in reason and unfair in law.

Secondly, the technical conditions for collecting property tax are very complicated. How to determine the tax base, is it levied according to the property tax or the property that wins the rent? How to define whether the tax rate varies from place to place, whether it is 1% or 3%, or whether the tax rate changes every year according to the real estate price? How to implement preferential tax policies and progressive tax system for different properties? These are all technical thresholds that cannot be bypassed in operation. As long as there is an unsatisfied condition such as personal real estate information and real estate valuation, it will cause an uproar in the real estate market with extremely complicated interests.

Most importantly, as a local tax, property tax is intended to make up for the shortage of local public finance, and then the annual income and tax rate of property tax are determined according to this shortage. Of course, property tax payers want the government to provide high-quality public goods. Only by providing high-quality public goods can the government ensure the income of property tax, thus realizing a virtuous circle of property appreciation and government tax collection. Therefore, in order to make all parties generally support the property tax, the most important thing is to make local public finances transparent and efficient, and let the people know the purpose of taxation. Property tax is not so much a challenge to property owners as a challenge to the openness and transparency of local government finances.

Property tax is not a secondary tax on the basis of transaction tax, but a major change in the real estate tax system; Property tax is not an emergency measure in the case of high housing prices, but a general adjustment to the real estate value chain; Property tax is not a punishment for holders of real estate, nor a financial dividend of the government, but an effort and expectation to establish a local public finance system. After the concept of "property tax" was put forward in China, it quickly caused a lot of repercussions and debates in theoretical circles, ordinary people, government departments and other different levels, and also triggered various speculations. The final conclusion about "property tax" is still a mystery. In the theoretical circle, there are different opinions on quoting classics; Ordinary people are gratified by the rumors that property tax can reduce housing prices, but they are also frustrated that their houses may have to pay a lot of taxes; Local governments, on the other hand, stay away from it because of speculation about the adverse effects of property tax on real estate development and local fiscal revenue. The main reason is the misunderstanding of property tax.

Generally speaking, "property" refers to real estate and its attachments. Property tax is a tax levied on real estate. This concept is mainly used in Hong Kong and some countries in Southeast Asia. Similar to the real estate tax or real estate tax generally levied in western countries, it belongs to property tax. However, in Hong Kong, property tax is only levied on operating real estate with rental income. In the mainland, the rental income of rental property is also subject to property tax or urban real estate tax, so property tax is nothing new.

China's real estate tax system is relatively complete, distributed in all aspects of real estate development, construction, transaction and preservation. Real estate tax in a broad sense includes farmland occupation tax, deed tax, stamp duty, land value-added tax, business tax, enterprise income tax, income tax of foreign-invested enterprises and foreign enterprises, personal income tax, property tax, urban land use tax and urban maintenance and construction tax, and the tax type is 12. Narrow real estate tax only includes property tax, urban real estate tax and urban land use tax, as well as * * * three taxes. Corresponding to the international real estate tax or real estate tax, China real estate tax should belong to the above-mentioned narrow concept of real estate tax.

From the perspective of tax attributes and international practices, there is not much difference between property tax, real estate tax or real estate tax, but if the concept of property tax is adopted in China mainland, the author thinks there are some shortcomings: First, the scope of property tax collection is narrow in Hong Kong tax system; Foreign countries include all kinds of operating and non-operating real estate, which is more similar to Chinese mainland's real estate (urban real estate) tax and urban land use tax. In China, two concepts of property tax with the same name and different contents are easy to differ. Second, the property tax is easily confused with the property fee, which easily leads to people's misunderstanding and aversion to "property" which charges and taxes. Thirdly, in the study of real estate tax system, the concept of real estate tax is mostly adopted by China's fiscal and taxation departments. Therefore, adopting the concept of real estate tax instead of real estate tax is more in line with China's national conditions and more easily accepted by people. On May 25th, 2009, the State Council issued "Opinions on Deepening Economic System Reform in 2009", proposing to deepen the reform of real estate tax system and study the introduction of property tax. In recent years, the discussion about property tax is very heated.

In 2007, State Taxation Administration of The People's Republic of China issued "Key Points of National Tax Work in 2007", pointing out that deepening the tax reform includes "studying the real estate tax scheme and continuing to carry out the simulated tax assessment pilot of real estate". Anhui, Henan, Fujian and Tianjin were approved as pilot areas for real estate tax simulation assessment. So far, including the first batch of Beijing, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Shenzhen, Ningxia and Chongqing, ten provinces and cities have started the "idle" operation of property tax.

At the China Finance and Taxation Forum in 2005, Jin Renqing, Minister of Finance, further clarified that consumption tax and property tax will be gradually introduced during the 11th Five-Year Plan period.

In the Third Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee in 2003, the property tax first appeared in the Resolution of the Central Committee on Several Issues Concerning the Improvement of the Socialist Market Economic System. In the budget report submitted to the Fifth Session of the Tenth National People's Congress for deliberation in 2007, it was first proposed to study the implementation plan of levying property tax.

House prices in large and medium-sized cities in China are rising while regulating. According to the data, in 2006, the sales price of houses in 70 large and medium-sized cities in China rose by 5.5%, and the high housing price has become a strong problem reflected by all sectors of society. Faced with this situation, since the convening of the two sessions, some deputies have called for the introduction of property tax, hoping that property tax can become a "stabilizer" for the development of the real estate industry. "The introduction of property tax will have a greater impact on the real estate market. In the past, the property tax has been in the exploratory stage. Now the budget report says that it should be said that it has taken a big step. " Luo, deputy director of Fuzhou Construction Bureau of Fujian Province and deputy to the National People's Congress, said. However, because China has not clearly put forward the specific implementation rules and measures of property tax collection, the implementation plan of property tax collection is still unclear. So, when is the property tax levied? There is still some controversy about how much impact it will have on the real estate industry. Some deputies believe that the introduction of property tax is worth looking forward to in regulating the real estate market, but it is also a complex project, and it needs to find a suitable balance point before it can be implemented.