Taxpayers' Interest to Be Better ProtectedProblems arising in tax collection and better ways of protecting the rights and interests of taxpayers have become hot issues in a panel discussion of a draft law on taxation that Chinese law makers held Thursday afternoon.A draft of the Law on the Administration of Tax Collection was under its second review today and members of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress (NPC) held a heated debate on the draft. Wang Mingshi, member of the NPC Standing Committee, said that the big increase in taxation in recent years partly results from some illegal taxation practices such as paying tax in advance. Such practices, he believed, would put some small businesses on the verge of bankruptcy. Gong Huanwen, a local legislator from Hebei Province, said that the malpractice not only hurts the interests of taxpayers, but may also cause the state to make an over-optimistic evaluation of the country's economic situation. Li Yining, a renowned economist, called for clearer regulations for the tax system to increase taxpayers awareness. Tsang Hin-chi, chairman of Goldlion Holdings Ltd. and a member of the NPC Standing Committee, said that foreign investors, more often than not, have little knowledge of China's complicated tax system and as a result, they are reluctant to invest in China because they have difficulties assessing the costs of investment. Yang Xingfu, a member of the NPC Standing Committee, proposed that a responsibility system and a supervision system are set up in tax-collecting departments, so that the tax collectors and supervisors are responsible for their performances. Other issues involved in the debate include keeping secrets of taxpayers' deposit savings, terms of postponing the payment of tax payers, and the preferential taxation policies for ethnic minority areas. According to the conventional practices of the NPC, a draft amendment has to go through three reviews before being put to the vote. |
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