China will scale up cuts in taxes and fees in 2022 on top of the newly added cuts worth 1.1 trillion yuan ($174 billion) last year and increase allocation of fiscal revenue to local governments to help offset their slowing revenues, officials from the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said on Tuesday, as the country firmly implements proactive fiscal policies for precision and sustainability in stabilizing economic growth.
Most provincial governments have estimated that their revenues this year will slow down from last year. In response, Finance Minister Liu Kun said at a press conference on Tuesday that it was "because we have made arrangements on tax and fee cuts."
"But we will step up payments to local governments this year to make up for a large portion of their reduction in revenues," Liu said, adding that the policy will lean on the underdeveloped regions.
In January, a total of 484.4 billion yuan of local government special-purpose bonds were issued, all of which were used in such areas as transportation and affordable housing projects, accounting for one-third of the amount that the MOF allocated from its 2022 quota, according to Liu.
Despite slowing revenue increase and more pressure on the expenditure end, tax and fee cuts will eventually help boost economic growth and lead to fiscal revenues increases in a later period, Vice Finance Minister Xu Hongcai said at the same briefing.
The MOF said that it will strengthen support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), individually run businesses and manufacturing by enhancing tax incentives and comprehensively using financing guarantees, loan interest discounts, incentives and subsidies to guide and leverage financial resources.
The number of small individual businesses in China, accounting for two-thirds of the country's total number of market entities, reached a record high in 2021, surpassing the 100 million mark and providing 276 million jobs, data from the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) showed in January.
China deferred an estimated 200 billion yuan of taxes for micro-sized firms and SMEs in the manufacturing sector in 2021 to help them cope with difficulties and shore up the industrial economy.
Read More at http://en.people.cn/n3/2022/0223/c90000-9961761.html
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