Study On The Levy Of Real Estate Tax For The Possession Of Residential Buildings

Ministry of Finance Minister Xiao Jie pointed out in an article named ‘Accelerating the Establishment of a Modern Fiscal System' on December 20,2017 that,according to the principle of ‘legislation first,full authorization,and step-by-step advancement',the legislation and implementation of the real estate tax should be promoted.This was interpreted by many media and experts as an official notice of the rapid landing of the real estate tax.The real estate industry plays an important role in the development of China's economy.However,there are many problems with the real estate-related taxation system as present in China.Therefore,the levy of the real estate tax in the future has its own specific background.As a matter of fact,the current real estate-related taxation cannot provide a strong guarantee for the local finance.Coupled with the change of business tax to value-added tax,the original subject taxes of local governments are missing,as well as the financial power and the authority of local governments are in an imbalanced state.In order to maintain the ever-expanding public service expenditure,local governments' short-sighted behavior of ‘land finance' has caused many problems.In addition,with the changes of the times and the constant increase of people's income level,social problems such as the large gap between the rich and the poor,and unfair distribution of wealth have also surfaced.The real estate-related taxation does not fully exert its regulatory effect on the real estate market,which is an important reason for the imbalance between the supply and demand structure of the real estate market and the expansion of the residents' wealth gap.From the perspective of the ownership of residential buildings,the paper mainly discusses the scope of inclusion of residential buildings into the real estate tax.The author conducts a normative study on the issues related to why and how the real estate tax is introduced in the future,and uses comparative analysis or graph analysis in many sections.Firstly,the paper briefly reviews the domestic and foreign literature,defines the concept of real estate tax studied in this paper,and compares the theoretical basis for real estate taxation.The United States,the United Kingdom,Singapore,and Hong Kong areselected as typical international countries and regions,to compare the collection system of their real estate tax and summarize the implications for China.At the same time,the paper analyzes the possible economic impact of real estate tax collection on local finance,wealth distribution,and resource allocation from multiple perspectives.Then it elaborates on the necessity of the introduction of the real estate tax in residential housing ownership.The paper analyzes the feasibility of real estate taxation in residential housing ownership.It discusses the key issues of whether the levy is feasible,and clarifies the current controversy and difficulties in real estate taxation.With reference to the international experience mentioned in the previous section and the principles that should be followed when levying the real estate tax,the paper finally concludes how to build a potential framework for the real estate taxation that suits the reality of our country.