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Relieve Farmers From Heavy Load: Vice-Premier
Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao has reiterated the call for relieving farmers from heavy levies and illegal charges in some localities.
Wen told a recent national teleconference on reducing financial load on farmers that "Reducing the financial burdens on Chinese farmers is an imperative government task."
Wen is concurrently a member of both the Political Bureau and Secretariat of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.
The situation in the countryside is generally sound, though there are some problems that must not be ignored, such as the difficulty for farmers to increase their incomes, excessive levies by local governments and local officials' simple and rough style of work, posing a threat to economic development and social stability in rural areas, said the vice-premier.
The key to cutting farmers' financial burdens is to carry out the central government policies on rural taxation, with the average levy not surpassing five percent of the total annual income of the farmers and the budgetary figure of 1997, he noted.
All the extra charges by local authorities must be waived and returned to the farmers, Wen said, adding that local governments must not levy illegal taxes on farmers in any form.
He also talked about the reduction of taxes on farmers in disaster-hit areas.
The official emphasized that to reduce the financial load on farmers, the taxation system must be reformed by streamlining relations on distribution between the state, the collective and the individual.
Local officials should be taught to improve their awareness about central government policies and the law, which is a guarantee for reducing the farmers' burdens, he noted.
The majority of Chinese farmers are not wealthy, he said. "We must give more to farmers and take less from them," he stressed.
He also urged local officials to learn how to handle various contradictions in the countryside under new circumstances. Leading local officials must go to the site whenever a major incident involving groups of farmers occurs, he said.
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