Jurisprudence Analysis Of The Real Estate Tax In China

On27January,2011, the Shanghai government issued a temporary policy tocollect real estate tax on some of the private-owned apartments. On the same day, theChongqing government also released its new tax rules and regulations which requirepart of the residents to pay tax for their houses. These marked the beginning of thereal estate tax reforms in the area of personal housing. The author tries to do researchon whether the current policies of real estate tax are lawful and justified from theperspective of legal philosophy. The research is based on the policies of Shanghaiand Chongqing and aims to come up with a feasible proposal on real estate tax inChina.The first chapter introduces the starting point of this issue, the most updatedresearches that have been done on these problems in China and abroad, and thephilosophy and methodology of this article.In the second chapter, the author first defines the concept of real estate tax,explains the history of the laws and regulations in this field, based on which heviews that the concept of real estate tax should be the same as the one defined in theregulation of the PRC real estate tax issued by the state council in the year of1986.Secondly, he analyzes the defects in current real estate tax schemes such as theover-variety of tax type, the insufficiency in the control of maintenance process, theconflicts inside the tax law so that the real estate tax can be better understood againstthe general background. Thirdly, the author comes to the conclusion that the realestate tax collected by Chongqing and Shanghai governments is no longer the realestate tax in1986and is substantially similar to property tax in some foreigncountries.The third chapter studies the problems based on the principle that tax should becollected in accordance with the laws. Firstly, it is pointed out that the collection ofreal estate tax at this moment is against the basic principle that tax should be regulated by laws rather than policies by studying its legal background of the policy,the legislative power source and the legislation procedure. Secondly, residents wouldbe taxed twice in China if the real estate tax were implemented, because they havealready been taxed in the name of land use fee. Finally, the Chongqing tax scheme inwhich second hand house should be taxed has breached the principle that the lawlooks forward not backward.The forth chapter is of the opinion that the real estate schemes in China areunjustified when they are looked into on their tax purpose, the usages of tax, the taxpayees and affiliated tax schemes.In the last chapter, the author concludes that even though the real estate taxschemes that have come to light are far from mature, they are realistic, and as long aswe can learn from the real estate schemes of the foreign countries, we will be able tomake the real estate tax scheme perfect through new legislation and building upaffiliated regulations in the future.