Circular of the State Administration on Further Strengthening the Administration of Real Estate Taxation

Circular of the State Administration on Further Strengthening the Administration of Real Estate Taxation

Guo Shui Fa [2005] No. 82

May 18, 2005

The departments (bureaus) of public finance of all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, cities directly under separate state planning,the administrations of state taxes, the administrations of local taxes, Yangzhou Institute of Taxation, and all internal departments of the State Administration of Taxation ("SAT"),
With the rapid development of the real estate in China, the revenues from real estate taxes have witnessed a sharp increase and have become an important source for the fiscal revenues of our country, therefore, the macro control of the real estate taxes is of ever growing importance. However, as the real estate taxes concern many categories of tax and are difficult to be collected, there exist many loopholes in the control and regulation of the tax sources. In order to make the administration of real estate taxes more scientific and refined, give further play to the regulatory functions of taxation, promote the healthy development of the real estate industry, it is necessary to, at the same time of carrying into effect the various management requirements under the existing management system, realize the exchange of information by sorting out the tax collection and administration resources available, strengthen the coordination and cooperation between different departments, ensure the cohesion between different links of tax collection and administration, and further strengthen the administration of real estate taxes, namely, the integrated administration of taxes. The relevant matters are hereby notified as follows:
I. The overall target and requirements for the integrated management of real estate taxes. Organic cohesion should be achieved between different categories of tax relating to the real estate industry by starting from the management of deed taxes for which taxes should be paid before a title deed certificate is issued ("tax first, then title deed"), taking the exchange of information and comparison of data as a backing, and taking the improvement of services and facilitation of taxpayers as the goal, so as to incessantly enhance the quality of tax collection and administration as well as the efficiency thereof through the cooperation between different departments and the control of different links.
For the time being, in the links of the remise of land use rights and real estate development, transfer and holding, different taxes are levied, including the business tax, urban maintenance and construction tax, educational surcharge (hereafter referred to as "business tax and surcharge" for short), enterprise income tax, foreign-funded enterprise and foreign enterprise income tax, individual income tax (hereafter referred to in general as "income taxes"), land VAT, urban land use tax, house tax, urban real estate tax, stamp tax, farmland occupation tax, deed tax, etc. Though the taxpayer and basis of taxation and other elements of taxation regarding different categories of taxes are not completely the same, the basic information on which tax collection and administration is based is primarily the same. The tax authorities on all levels and the fiscal departments which collect the deed tax (hereafter referred to as "tax authorities" for short) should intensify the administration of tax filing, making active efforts to win the cooperation and support of the real estate administrative departments and to have full command of the basic information on which tax collection and administration is based.
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