Early April was tax season in China too, and the government, with its inaugural personal income-tax return filing requirement, was “snubbed” by its earners this year, reports the April 12th article in The Economist, “Return to Sender.” Low compliance (1.6 million out of an expected 6-7 million returned), deadline extensions, and the government’s own inability to tally returns by its promised date have cast the spotlight on the Chinese government’s personal income-tax filing woes. Part of the problem, suggests the article, is that the annual filing seems redundant next to the existing monthly reporting requirements; even the state-run newspapers are arguing that “the tax administration [has] no legal authority to fine people for failing to fill out returns relating to income on which they had already paid tax.” Another part is that Chinese do not see the return on their taxation: “they have to pay through the nose for healthcare and for decent education for their children. They are also resent that few officials pay tax, even though many have big incomes from shady dealings.” In Guangzhou’s state-owned Information Times, even “no taxation without representation” made an appearance as an editorial called for “fewer officials and more taxpayers.”
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