From Chinese Press

Ease tax burden

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-22 08:13

Housing, healthcare and old age pension are a big worry for most people today. The middle class, despite earning just about enough, is burdened with individual income tax. To narrow the income distribution, more taxes should be imposed on the super-rich groups and low-income people should be allowed tax deductions for the money they spent on education, healthcare, insurance and old age pension, says an article on southcn.com. Excerpts:

Strengthening supervision on taxation alone cannot narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, because the rich adopt various methods to evade tax, while ordinary workers, not covered by an affordable social security network, have to pay salary tax.

The government, according to given situations, should at first start imposing property tax and legacy tax gradually on property holdings and intergenerational transfer of assets.

Second, it should consider the plight of ordinary salaried workers and reduce their economic burden by raising the individual income tax threshold. And third, it should exempt the money such people spend on education, healthcare, insurance and old age pension as from taxation.

The tax department's poor performance in tax returns has made things even more difficult for the disadvantaged groups. The authorities should pay more attention to the process of tax returns, rather than increasing taxes on the salaried workers.

(China Daily 06/22/2010 page9)