Shanghai to continue with property tax measures

The municipal government of Shanghai announced on Friday that it will continue implementing trial measures for the collection of property tax from eligible individuals.

"After assessing the city's trial policies on levying real estate tax issued in January 2011, the municipal government has decided to keep existing policies unchanged," said a notice published on the Shanghai municipal government's official website on Dec 18.

Shanghai and Chongqing became the only two cities in the Chinese mainland to levy property tax in 2011.

In Shanghai, the tax is only collected from families having a housing area of more than 60 square meters per person, which is taxed at a rate of 0.4 percent or 0.6 percent of the total property price annually, depending on the apartment's price per square meter.