Structural tax cut won't cut it: public

Beijing (CNS) -- Despite last year's readjustment of their taxation system, the Chinese public still considers their current tax burdens far from appropriate; so does many a company.

Former Deputy Director Xu Shanda at the State Administration of Taxation addressed the "messy" issue on Tuesday.

To cut through the complicated facts, a simple comparison of figures might help: in 2011, China's taxation revenues amounted to almost nine trillion yuan, up 22.6% year on year, while its annual GDP growth stayed around 9.2 percent.

Xu stressed that constant tax-cut policies are needed to ease financial tensions for companies, especially mid and small-sized enterprises, as well as the general public.

During this year's "two sessions", 25 NPC deputies and CPPCC members jointly signed a proposal to reduce taxes for enterprises.

Regarding the call for across-the-board tax cuts requested by certain companies, researcher Jia Kang at the Ministry of Finance holds a more conservative view: amusing as the idea sounds, it lacks feasibility.

As for the public, Jia added, their pain mainly results from taxed commodities, which happen to be the main source of national tax revenues.

To rationally revise these structural defects, Jia raised three considerations for the next round or few of taxation discussions: derating tariffs, relaxing value-added taxes and business taxes, and gradually replacing business taxes with value-added taxes. Individual taxation, Jia stressed, calls for special attention to designing preferential policies for low and mid-range taxpayers.

As officially recognized in this year's government work report, structural rather than across-the-board tax cuts top the official agenda in the short run, former president Qin Xiao at the China Merchants Group told CNS.

Tax-cutting is a matter of course in Qin's view, while the big concerns he fingers are the proper 'reduction dose' each time, which step should be executed first, and how the interests of all groups can be addressed as equitably as possible.