Property tax schemes submitted

Several major cities in China have submitted their local property tax pilot schemes to the central government, the official China Securities Journal reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter.

The cities include Beijing, Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong Province, Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu Province and Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province, according to the newspaper report, which said a majority of the pilot schemes are nearing final versions, signaling that the government's property tax pilot expansion may be expected in the near future.

Currently, only the Shanghai and Chongqing municipalities have the tax trials in place.

The expansion of property tax pilots is believed to be one of the most effective solutions to cool off a housing market that has remained red hot despite the government's tightened property control rules.

Among 70 major cities across the country being tracked by the National Bureau of Statistics, only one city, Wenzhou in Zhejiang, posted a year-on-year price decline in new homes in May, the bureau announced Tuesday. In April, Wenzhou and Ningbo, another city in Zhejiang, recorded year-on-year declines in new home prices.

The situation indicates that an extension of the property tax pilots nationwide is already urgently needed, said the newspaper report.

The State Council, the nation's cabinet, also said in late May that the expansion of property tax pilots for individual houses is one of the key priorities on this year's economic reform agenda.

But the average Chinese citizen, who has been feeling the pinch of skyrocketing home prices for the past few years, has yet to be convinced that the move will deal a blow to housing inflation.

As of 11 pm Wednesday, 57.9 percent of respondents disagreed that the property tax could help combat high home prices, compared to 32.5 percent who agreed, according to the results of an ongoing online survey of nearly 61,167 netizens by Chinese news portal sina.com.

In addition, 47 percent of respondents believed the expansion could have an impact on their home buying plans.