Controversial property, tax laws introduced
9 March 2007
Chinese lawmakers formally introduced groundbreaking laws to protect private property and to end nearly three decades of blanket tax breaks for foreign investors, the Wall Street Journal reported. The proposed property law begins the process of legally protecting private wealth by a government that only a generation ago preached communist egalitarianism. The proposed tax law would unify the tax rate for foreign-financed companies with those of Chinese enterprises at 25%, in a step that will raise the tax burden considerably for many companies. Vice Chairman Wang Zhaoguo, a member of the Communist Party's powerful Politburo, said the country's economic and social changes have made the laws necessary. Enacting them, he said, would help "safeguard the immediate interests of the people." Both laws are nearly guaranteed to pass - the National Party Congress has never voted down a single piece of legislation.