Government 'snatches big enough slice of fiscal pie' (3)

China is facing decelerating growth of government income.

Government revenue in the first 10 months increased 11.2 percent, 16.9 percentage points lower than in the same period last year, data from the Ministry of Finance showed.

Sun Liping, a professor of sociology at Tsinghua University, said that local tax officials have to deal with increasing challenges to achieve their tax collection targets, which may be as high as 20 percent, amid slower economic growth.

Xu said that local authorities should be given more financial resources, so as to ease their financial strain.

Qin Xiao, council chairman of the Boyuan Foundation, a Hong Kong-registered think tank, said that in addition to tax reform measures such as replacing business tax with value-added tax and lowering tariffs, more items should be explored, such as an environmental tax.

weitian@chinadaily.com.cn

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