BEIJING - China's top legislature has received over 97,000 comments from the public on the draft law on vehicle and vessel taxation, one month after it released the full draft and invited opinions.

Members of the public generally acknowledged the draft's significance in helping determine fair levels of tax burdens for tax-payers and in standardizing China's taxation system, the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee said in a statement Tuesday.

Questioning the rationality of vehicle taxes being levied on the basis of engine capacity, some people, however, said the nature of the taxation should be further ascertained, which in the bill was defined as a property tax.

Some suggested the depreciation in the value of vehicles and vessels should be considered a factor in taxation, while others said taxes could be levied based upon criteria which combined engine capacity and market prices of vehicles.

The full text of the draft law was available on NPC's official website for public comment from Oct 28 to Nov 30.

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Passed at an executive meeting of the State Council, China's cabinet, on Oct 12, the draft law is set to replace current tax regulations on vehicles and vessels that took effect in 2007.

The draft law reduces taxes on energy-savings and clean energy-powered vehicles and increases taxes on large cars.

China defines motor vehicles as motorcycles, tractors, trucks and cars and the country has 199 million motor vehicles on its roads, including more than 85 million automobiles.