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Tax revenue growth rate falls to 2.5% in September

By Pei Pei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-10-14 19:09

China's tax revenue growth rate, which was above 30 percent during the first half year, dropped to 2.5 percent in September due to the cut in the stock stamp tax and the downturn of enterprise profits, a State Administration of Taxation (SAT) source said.

The stamp tax revenue rocketed by more than ten times to 200.5 billion yuan ($29.35 billion) in 2007，while this year it is no more than 100 billion yuan as a result of a cut in the stock stamp tax and unilateral imposition of stamp tax on stock transactions.

In addition, as business profit slides, revenues from income tax, business tax and other major taxes have fallen substantially. An SAT official stressed the real estate tax revenue has declined significantly.

For many years, China's tax revenue had maintained more than 20 percent growth. Last year, the country's total tax revenue surpassed 4.9 trillion yuan, up 31.4 percent year-on-year. In the first half of 2008, it was 3142.58 billion yuan, an increase of 33.5 percent from the same period last year. However, the growth rate in July dropped to 13.8 percent, the first sharp decline since 2003. In August, the figure was even lower to 11 percent.

Despite the slowing momentum in July and August, the government and research institutions agreed that the growth rate of the second half year was certain to fall, but they believed it was unlikely to be less than 10 percent. And many officials and scholars thought it reasonable that the tax growth rate be close to the GDP growth rate.

Many are now worried about the 2.5 percent growth rate，and say if the downward trend continues, tax revenue growth rate is likely to be negative in the following months.