What is property tax?

The so-called property tax, also known as property tax or real estate tax, is mainly aimed at real estate such as land and houses, requiring its lessee or owner to pay a certain amount of tax every year, and the tax payable will increase with the increase of the market value of real estate. For example, after the opening of expressways and subways, the real estate prices along the line will increase, and correspondingly, the property tax will also increase.

Theoretically speaking, property tax is a kind of property tax, and it is a tax levied on citizens' property. Therefore, first of all, the government must respect state property and provide protection for it; Then as a counterpart, citizens must pay certain taxes to ensure the corresponding government expenditure. Property tax is the government's compensation for public goods provided by the government, which is levied by the government on the owners who use or occupy real estate with the coercive power of political power.

At present, most mature market economy countries in the world levy property tax on real estate, taking the possession of property as the premise of tax payment and the value of property 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 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.

According to the analysis of a real estate research institute, theoretically speaking, because the land price and related taxes are paid in 70 years, this means that the land price and related taxes, which account for more than 50% of the housing cost, only need to pay 1/70 at the time of sale, and the remaining 69 years will be paid separately, which reduces it? 70- 1? /70 = 98.57%, reflected in the house price, the cost has dropped by 50% × 98.57% = 49.29%. Considering other factors in the operation caused by increased demand, we took 10% of the shares as our own, and also reduced our holdings by more than 39%.

Experts believe that after the introduction of property tax, house prices will decline, but the decline is unlikely to be as high as 40%, because house prices are mainly affected by market supply and demand.

Collecting property tax will make the initial price of the house relatively low, but after purchase, it will bear a certain amount of property tax every year, and the property tax will become the expected expenditure in the future. The use cost of housing has increased, so some people worry that the situation of "can't afford to live" will increase greatly. Liu Huan said that this kind of worry is unnecessary, because from the international practice, there is a certain bottom line for the collection of property tax, which is mainly aimed at the investment, rental and other business premises in the ownership link, while for the self-occupied premises, it is exempted or less levied. Because housing is a quasi-public product, if a person owns real estate other than basic housing, it means that he occupies other people's resources and should pay for it. In addition, at present, investors have to pay a certain fee to invest in stocks, funds, bonds and other products, but only invest in real estate without paying fees, which is unfair to investors.

Experts believe that it is a good thing for property buyers to levy property tax. Because in the process of purchase, the burden on the buyer is reduced, and in the process of ownership, the tax burden will be very light or even not. For buyers of investment housing, they should pay the corresponding fees for occupying more resources.

Regarding the question of how to levy property tax on new houses and old houses that everyone cares about, the relevant person said that the property tax is only for new houses, and the old houses have already paid various taxes and fees at the time of transaction, and will not be taxed again.

Can the property tax work?

Tian Yangang, a lawyer of Beijing Law Firm, believes that stabilizing housing prices is a very serious and urgent task before the government. However, any new policy should be strictly demonstrated. Don't just treat the symptoms. Wrong laws or policies will only damage the credibility of the government.

First of all, he thinks that the idea of levying property tax is to reduce the house price. The design framework of property tax is to pay the land use right transfer fee once a year according to the transfer period, so that the price paid by the purchaser at the time of purchase can be deducted from the land price, and the total price of the house will definitely come down. But once house prices fall, it will inevitably stimulate the growth of demand. However, land is a limited scarce resource, and commercial housing, as a special commodity, cannot be released indefinitely. In this way, the imbalance between supply and demand will be more serious, which will be reflected in the price of commercial housing, and will inevitably rebound quickly on the basis of the initial decline, and the price reduction effect brought by property tax will be quickly diluted.

Secondly, the introduction of property tax will also bring inoperability to the acquisition of land use rights. Once the property tax is levied, there is no legal basis for the transfer of land use rights, and its payment method becomes the annual payment by the owners in the form of property tax. If we operate according to the existing standards, it seems that the land development right is only the "lowest price of commercial housing sales in the future". The end result must be the increasingly rampant trading of power and money and corruption.

Finally, in the current legal environment, the collection of property tax will make governments at all levels fall into a legal quagmire and even affect social stability and harmony. At present, in such a social transition period, the whole society is seriously lacking in legal awareness and moral concepts of honesty and law-abiding. After levying property tax, we must face a question: "What if we don't pay property tax?" . When dealing with the contradiction between the owner and the property management company, the government can still mediate as an intermediary, but if the owner fails to pay the property tax and the government falls into an execution dispute, the government will become the contradictory party. The contradiction between the owner and the property management company can be intensified to such an extent that if there is a dispute between the owner and the government on the property tax issue, this social contradiction will be infinitely magnified. Finally, the government will be caught in an embarrassing situation of neither collecting nor collecting property tax.