Nov 19 Reuters -- Chinese President Xi Jinping is facing resistance over a nationwide property tax to curb housing speculation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday citing people with knowledge of government deliberations.
Earlier this year, Xi assigned to Han Zheng, the most senior of China's four vice premiers, with the task of rolling out the levy much more widely, according to the report https: www.wsj.com However, Beijing is now sticking to a strong tax plan because of strong pushback, while the WSJ reported that a proposal with state-provided affordable housing is emerging as an alternative.
An initial proposal to test-run the tax in some 30 cities has been scaled back to around 10, the report said.
In an essay in the official Communist Party journal Qiushi, published on Friday by the ruling Xinhua news agency, Xi had called for China to aggressively and steadily advance legislation for a property tax.
China has mulled such a tax for over a decade but faced resistance from stakeholders, including local governments themselves, who fear it would erode property values or trigger a market sell-off.
In internal debates the feedback on Xi's property tax plan from both the party elite and its rank-and-file members has been overwhelmingly negative, the WSJ report said, citing the people familiar with the deliberations.