A senior Ministry of Finance official has called on national lawmakers to extend a pilot property-tax scheme - the first of its kind on the mainland - to the rest of the country.
Assistant Finance Minister Wang Baoan said at a National People's Congress Standing Committee session on the construction and administration of subsidised housing that the scheme, which was levied on owners of relatively large flats, was going well in Shanghai and Chongqing .
'The next step we should take is to learn from their experience and step up efforts to establish a national property-tax policy, to further expand the role it has in controlling housing prices and regulating the market,' Wang was quoted by Xinhua as saying yesterday.
A tax was levied on large, expensive homes in Chongqing and Shanghai in January on a trial basis as part of efforts to rein in speculation and housing inflation. The central government has struggled to reduce stubbornly high inflation rates without damaging the fast-growing economy. Containing rising home prices is a key part of that effort.
Wang's remarks are another sign that the government will expand the property tax nationwide.
Earlier this week, Jia Kang, head of the Institute of Research at the Ministry of Finance, said he was certain that a national property tax would be launched within a year.
Before yesterday's Standing Committee session, He Keng, vice-chairman of the NPC Financial and Economic Affairs Committee, said he believed the property tax was the most important economic measure to stabilise the housing market.