Real estate tax will be levied according to the assessed value, but there are still many challenges in landing.

　　A long article and dozens of words are the key words of real estate topic these days.

　　On December 20th, Minister of Finance Xiao Jie published the article "Accelerating the Establishment of Modern Financial System" in People’s Daily. The article mentions that the legislation and implementation of real estate tax should be promoted according to the principle of "legislation first, full authorization and step by step". Real estate tax shall be levied on industrial and commercial real estate and individual housing according to the assessed value, and the tax burden of construction and transaction links shall be appropriately reduced, and a perfect modern real estate tax system shall be gradually established.

　　The just-concluded Central Economic Work Conference also pointed out that it is necessary to improve the long-term mechanism to promote the stable and healthy development of the real estate market, maintain the continuity and stability of the real estate market regulation policies, distinguish the central and local powers, and implement differentiated regulation. As a result, the topic of real estate tax has been hotly debated again.

　　How to "collect" real estate tax according to the assessed value?

　　In the discussion on the landing of real estate tax, a new signal conveyed by the above article is that "industrial and commercial real estate and individual housing are subject to real estate tax according to the assessed value". The so-called evaluation value refers to the market evaluation value of the house, not the original value of the house (that is, the price at the time of purchase).

　　Yan Yuejin, research director of the think tank center of Yiju Research Institute, said that from the above statement, "collection according to the evaluation value" is a tax on the housing holding link, which will be based on the original value and existing value of the house, and take into account the real estate market. The environment and the value of similar properties around it are systematically evaluated, and then the corresponding tax share is obtained.

　　"In other words, the more the assessed value is collected, the smaller the assessed value is, which is in line with the principle of taxation in the holding link." Yan Yuejin believes that the positive answers to questions such as how to collect real estate tax indicate that the reform of real estate tax is accelerating.

　　The way of taxation has been determined, but how to carry out housing valuation is still a concern of many people. Owners may worry that the price of the house they bought before is low. If it is valued at the market value after the price increase, what impact will it have?

　　"There will be a set of specific and professional evaluation methods." Jia Kang, member of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and chief economist of Huaxia Institute of New Supply Economics, said that the tax base evaluation of real estate tax has mature experience, and the general idea of collection is relatively clear, but it is still too early to discuss many details.

　　Yan Yuejin believes that the real estate tax levy will consider the evaluation value included in the scope of taxation, and there may be some deductions at this time. For ordinary people, considering the need for replacement and living in different places, housing holding similar to ordinary people is actually not a big problem, and it will not even be included in the scope of taxation. For those who hold multiple houses, the possibility of taxation is expected to be great.

　　In addition, what is the realistic basis of the method of "collecting real estate tax according to the assessed value" is also a concern of the real estate industry at present. Dong Fan, director of the Real Estate Research Center of Beijing Normal University, participated in the counseling and examination of the first batch of real estate appraisers in China. In his view, it is still debatable whether the current real estate appraisal force can support the real estate taxation work.

　　Dong Fan said that because the real estate is single and each house is different, the tax price must be calculated separately. At present, there are at least 300 million houses in cities in China, but there are only about 30,000 real estate appraisers. "If taxation is an annual levy, if it is assessed once a year, how many sets will each person have to assess? To evaluate 10,000 sets. " In his view, the current technical force can not meet the objective requirements of the full levy of real estate tax.

　　With strong local characteristics, how does the real estate tax go through the legal road?

　　It is worth noting that real estate tax will not be levied immediately, but must go through a series of legislative procedures first. Xiao Jie also pointed out in the above article: Strive to complete all legislative procedures in 2019, and complete the reform task of "implementing the statutory principle of taxation" in 2020.

　　Previously, in the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC)’s legislative work plan for 2017, the real estate tax law was also included in the preparatory and research demonstration projects. However, the road to real estate tax statutory is not easy.

　　Dong Fan said that although the Ministry of Finance participates in the legislative work of real estate tax as the competent department, the ultimate leading authority of this legislative work lies in the National People’s Congress; If housing is included in the object of real estate tax collection, there is a fatal flaw in jurisprudence, because the public ownership of land leads to the fact that real estate cannot be a complete private property, so the conditions are not mature.

　　Zhu Weiqun, a professor of public school of economics and management at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said: "It is established to fully implement the statutory principle of taxation by 2020, but it is also very difficult, and the legislation of real estate tax is the most difficult of all taxes. In his view, although the landing of real estate tax is the future direction, because it involves thousands of households, the landing method is likely to be implemented in stages, regions and differences.

　　"The real estate tax is likely to be a local tax, and the tax rates in different places are not exactly the same. The tax elements such as the scope of taxation and the object of taxation, as well as the details of tax reduction and exemption may also have regional characteristics." Zhu Weiqun said.

　　When talking about promoting and improving the reform of the local tax system, the above article also mentioned that to expand the local tax power, under the premise of unified legislation and tax levy power of the central government, according to the characteristics of taxes, the local tax management authority should be appropriately expanded through legislative authorization, and the local tax management authority is mainly concentrated at the provincial level.

　　Jia Kang believes that a clear expression and trend at present is to fully empower local governments. "After authorization, places can distinguish the situation, not quick march together, but can be implemented step by step."

　　From the experience of foreign countries, most of the real estate tax is also one of the main financial resources of local governments. Zhu Weiqun believes that if we refer to this experience, it is objectively required that the real estate tax should be linked to the fiscal expenditure of the grass-roots government, and reasonable expenditure should be used to lead the future real estate tax reform, and the tax reform should be discussed from the perspective of the interconnection of revenue and expenditure of local governments, rather than tax reform.

　　"Behind the tax issue is expenditure, and reasonable expenditure determines reasonable taxation." Zhu Weiqun said that without the statutory constraints on fiscal expenditure, it is impossible to fundamentally solve the tax problem.

　　Jia Kang also believes that the reform of the fiscal and taxation system is a necessary option in the supporting measures for real estate tax landing. "The reform process of real estate tax must be well coordinated with other reforms. It is not enough to emphasize the importance of this."

　　Beijing, December 21st