China Still Lacking Property Taxes

"This year it seemed China was finally going to make headway on an idea familiar to U.S. homeowners: a property tax," according to Dominique Fong. Now it seems that possibility is no longer a political reality—for now at least.

"Lu Kehua, China’s vice housing minister, last month said the government needed to 'speed up' a property-tax law," to "tame" speculation in the real estate market and to provide revenue for local governments. Despite the support from a high-ranking official, "the annual National People’s Congress came and went this month with no discussion of the topic," according to Fong.

The political opposition to the idea of a property tax comes from wealthy and politically powerful Chinese residents—a difficult group to win over in any country. The political opposition to the property tax idea claims it does not want to slow the economy by imposing new changes to the country's tax structure.

There have been a few property tax experiments in the country since 2011. As Fong reports, property taxes in Chongqing and Shanghai, both unique in their approach, were considered failures.

[The Wall Street Journal article might be behind a paywall for some readers.]