As learned from the National Agricultural Taxation Working Meeting held in Beijing Wednesday pilot reform of agricultural taxes and fees, which consists mainly of eliminating non-tax charges (such as those for accumulation fund, public welfare fund, administrative fees at village level, the 9-year compulsory education, family planning, special care undertaking, militia training and village road construction) and reforming agricultural taxation has made remarkable achievements since it was unfolded nationwide in 2003. Financial burden on farmers has been reduced more than 30 percent nationwide totaling about 28 billion yuan. In the year 2000 under the planning by the Party Central Committee and the State Council China began the reform of taxes and fees in rural areas, which is centered on farmers financial burden reduction and consists mainly of eliminating non-tax charges and reform of agricultural taxation. The reform is experimented in Anhui and has been extended nationwide in 2003.

According to an official at the State Taxation Administration four provinces and cities including Jilin, Heilongjiang, Beijing and Tianjin have exempted agricultural taxes; Shanghai has exempted agricultural taxes on farmers and Zhejiang and Fujian have exempted agricultural taxes on grain and oil crops on taxable land areas; 268 counties in another 16 provinces have exempted agricultural taxes - double the 134 counties in 6 provinces as estimated by the Ministry of Finance early this year. Through agricultural tax elimination and tax rate reduction China has reduced agricultural tax burden by about 22 billion yuan. Plus the elimination of taxes on special agricultural products except tobacco leaves totally about 28 billion yuan has been relieved from the burden on farmers. Through pilot reform financial burden on farmers has been reduced by more than 30 percent nationwide. Distribution order in rural areas has been improved considerably. Vicious incidents and cases related to farmer burden have been drastically reduced and relationship between cadres and masses has been improved.

The official said by the end of 2003 agricultural tax-collecting departments at various levels have effected reduction or exemption of 15.1 billion yuan for disasters or crop failures, social reduction or exemption of 5.092 billion yuan and reduction or exemption of 267 million yuan for major grain-growing families. A total of 614 million person-times have benefited from this so far. Meanwhile the administration of occupation tax on cultivated land and property transfer tax has also made huge progress. In 2003 revenue from the two taxes reached 45.18 billion yuan in China, of which property transfer tax accounted for 35.943 billion yuan and occupation tax on cultivated land for 9.237 billion yuan, increasing by 239 percent and 163 percent respectively from those in 1999. All this has greatly alleviated the pressure on finance resulting from reform and burden reduction, ensured the normal operation of grass-root governments and made another important contribution to the reform.

By People's Daily Online