| |
 |
Tax revenue soars
|
SHENZHEN has colleted nearly 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) in personal income tax over the past 20 years, with an annual increase of 37.65 per cent since 1994.
Wu Yexiang, an official with Shenzhen Local Taxation Bureau, attributed the city's surging personal income tax to the rising awareness of local residents.
In 1980, the year when the special economic zone was founded, Shenzhen began to collect personal income tax and the minimal levying point was a monthly salary of 800 yuan.
“But few people other than foreigners working here could reach the standard in those days, so the whole personal income tax that year was only 40,000 yuan in the city,” Wu said.
But by 1994, everything had changed: that year Shenzhen netted 408 million yuan in personal income tax while the figure for China as a whole was 7.4 billion yuan. In 2000, the figure for Shenzhen soared to 2.77 billion yuan.
When asked to name the highest payer of personal income tax in the city, Wu said it is hard to say since there are several sources of personal income tax such as salaries, dividends, interests from bank savings and others.
According to Wu, as far as salaries are concerned, the president of a Shenzhen-based foreign bank could be regarded as the highest taxpayer. With a monthly salary of 500,000 yuan, he pays 166,850 yuan of personal income tax every month.
(Winton Dong)
|
|
|
|
