China tax figures don't add up

If the top businessmen are as rich as Forbes magazine claims they are, their firms are not paying their dues. Only four of its top 100 are on the list of the 50 biggest taxpayers

Companies belonging to the mainland's richest people are conspicuously absent from a list of the top private business taxpayers released by the central government.

Only four enterprises owned by people included in Forbes Magazine's 100 wealthiest list showed up in the State Administration of Taxation's 2002 report of the 50 biggest private business taxpayers.

None of the companies run by people Forbes said were the 25 wealthiest Chinese made the list of top taxpayers. One of the entrepreneurs whose company is listed as a top taxpayer - Li Haicang - is even dead.

By Forbes calculations, the 10 wealthiest tycoons on the mainland were together worth about US$6 billion.

According to the report, the nation's 50 largest private business taxpayers contributed a total of 1.24 billion yuan (HK$1.17 billion) to the nation's treasury last year.