Earlier this week, we told you that Chongqing municipality is due to be the first Chinese city to impose a long-anticipated property tax. Well, in a short interview, the city' Mayor, Huang Qifan, had some clarifications.

He says tax on high-end properties will be levied on not just homes purchased after the tax takes effect, but also that were purchased beforehand. So it would be retroactive. However, he didn't give any other details regarding the rate, or the standards of evaluation for high-end housing.

For some indication, some are looking to the mayor's comments 10 years ago, where he said it was international practice to levy an annual one-percent tax on villas and high-end homes. He categorized high-ending housing as homes whose price is more than 3 times the city's average. More recently, Huang has said the property tax will not increase the burden to ordinary residents.

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