To the Ministry of Finance,
In recent years, the central government has been carrying out tax reduction policies. It has raised the threshold for which taxes are increased on individual income and on small and very small enterprises.
Transforming a corporate tax to a value-added tax will be a major task of reform in the next few years. It’s expected to be fully implemented by 2015. In 2012, the new policy brought more than 400 million yuan in tax cuts in pilot areas, and the number is expected to reach 200 billion yuan in 2013.
Structural tax reduction has been an essential task of the Ministry of Finance over the past few years. We have no doubt that the tax cuts in related fields will continue to increase, but we also want to warn you that “dormant taxes” are gradually waking up in some areas.
Some taxes have been dormant because of partial exemption terms when they began or because of limited management capability. In recent years though, these taxes have started to be resurrected.
Therefore, we’d like to know more about tax reduction. Do we have more taxes in some areas? Do we have more tax increases or more tax reductions?
During this year’s “Two Sessions,” a CPPCC member asked for the abolition of the working-class’s personal income tax. Some other members asked to raise the personal income tax threshold again. We believe that the government should continue to reduce the value-added tax, corporate tax, income tax and consumption tax.
We hope that our government can create a middle class between the top and bottom of the wealth pyramid through tax adjustment and avoid widening the gap between rich and poor.
Mainland China ranked second in the “Tax Misery Index” compiled by the Forbes Magazine. We feel like in China, the working-class has a heavier tax burden than the rich, who use various methods to avoid taxes.
We know it’s our obligation to pay taxes, and we also want to enjoy our rights as taxpayers.
Du Tao (杜濤)
Original article: [Chinese]