China's personal income tax broke 1.009 trillion yuan ($146 billion) in 2016, up 17.1 percent from a year earlier, with four top-tier cities contributing about 40 percent of the total, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Guanghzou totaled 400 billion yuan, accounting for 39.6 percent of the national total.

Shanghai took the top spot among all cities, with personal tax revenues of 148.3 billion yuan in 2016, followed by Beijing at 142.8 billion. The two cities have concentrations of high income sectors including finance (per capita average annual income of 114,777 yuan), software and information technology (112,042 yuan) and scientific research (89,410 yuan),

Peng Peng, vice chairman of the Guangdong Society of Economic Reform, said Beijing and Shanghai stood out also because they are home to big State-owned enterprises and headquarters for multinational companies.

Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong province ranked third, at 75.8 billion yuan, but its per capita income tax was close to Beijing and Shanghai because it has just half of Beijing's population.

The increase in Shenzhen's income tax revenue was mainly driven by growth in its financial, internet and cultural industries.

Guangzhou rounded out the four, trailing in personal income tax revenues with about one-quarter of Beijing and Shanghai and a half of Shenzhen. It has fewer listed companies, said Peng.

There is a sharp disparity between the top four and second-tier cities, which all received personal income taxes below 30 billion yuan. Although the southwestern city of Chengdu's GDP surpassed 1.2 trillion yuan in 2016, about half of that in Beijing, income tax revenue was only about 10 percent of the capital city's.