An international survey that gives China's tax system low marks
for efficiency has stirred up a debate among local officials and
experts.
China reportedly ranks eighth among countries with the highest
tax burdens, a survey of the business environments in 175 economies
concluded. The survey was jointly conducted by the World Bank and
the consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
It measured indicators like types of taxes levied, time needed
for paying them and tax rates. It found that on average, a company
operating in China spends 872 hours per year dealing with tax
matters. The average for all the economies surveyed was 332
hours.
However, an official at the State Administration of Taxation was
quoted by China Business Week magazine as saying that the
survey's data was incomplete and its methodology questionable.
Still, some experts agreed that taxation authorities have room
to streamline the tax system to reduce the time and energy
enterprises have to spend.
Zhou Tianyong, an economist at the Central Party School, said
the fees that some government departments collect could be
considered de facto taxes.
Zhou said some of the fees should be cancelled, while those
deemed absolutely necessary should be converted into taxes that are
payable only to tax bureaus.
Zhang Bin, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences' Institute of Finance and Trade, said some of the taxes
could be combined to reduce the number of the taxes that
enterprises pay.
Steps should also be taken to simplify tax-paying procedures,
Zhang said.
(China Daily January 23, 2007)