Public increases tax pressure on govt

The public has expressed a high degree of concern since a draft amendment to the Personal Income Tax Law was submitted to the National People's Congress.

The amendment proposes the tax threshold be raised to 3,000 yuan a month ($460) from the current 2,000 yuan and the current nine brackets of the rating system be reduced to seven. On the first day of publication, the top legislature received more than 100,000 responses and had collected nearly 200,000 by May 8, which is the total number of responses it received for all the 20 law drafts made public since 2009.

Many have complained that the tax threshold's 1,000-yuan rise is not enough and there are those who have been critical of the whole tax system. Some urban dwellers, especially those in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other large cities, published their living costs online on a variety of websites and forums, and these were much higher than the minimum living expenses calculated by relevant government departments.