1. How does the United States collect property tax?
In our inherent impression, the United States is a country with a lot of taxes, and it is indeed true. American tax law is perfect, with complete categories and clear details. However, the property tax in the United States is not as high as we thought, ranging from 1% to 3%. Among them, the lowest property tax is Hawaii, only 0.28%, and the property tax in southern States is generally higher. For example, in Texas, the city's property tax ranges from 2.5% to 3.5%.
The basis for calculating the property tax in the United States is the house valuation, not the market price, and the valuation is often lower than the market price. Valuation is generally based on the latest real estate transaction price, with reference to the ground building conditions, land area and the same or similar houses in the same area. Low housing prices are not unique to the United States. Dr. Li has done research: the estimated price of property tax in Britain has remained unchanged for almost 30 years, and the estimated price of property tax in Taiwan Province Province in China is less than one twentieth of the market price. Why is the tax rate low and the valuation low when calculating property tax? Because the wool is on the sheep, too high taxes and fees will be reflected in the transaction price and rent, and the owner will try his best to pass this part of the loss on to the buyer or renter.
Since the property tax in the United States is very low, why is it difficult to speculate in real estate in the United States? This is because the tax to curb real estate speculation is not property tax, but capital income tax. The capital income tax rate is equivalent to the seller's personal income tax rate. The higher the income, the higher the tax rate and the higher the short-term capital income tax. The tax rate of 20 17 is 10%-39.6%, and there are 7 grades. Moreover, owning American real estate has to pay property tax, property fee, insurance fee, maintenance fee and so on. It makes the investment form of real estate with long liquidation period too expensive. For Americans, investing in real estate is far less attractive than investment forms such as money funds.
According to ICI data, in 2065438+2006, the size of the US Monetary Fund reached 2.73 trillion US dollars. Therefore, the American real estate market is more rational and healthy. According to the survey report data of NAR (National Association of Realtors), in March this year, 50% of the houses were put on the market for sale in about 34 days, which was 13 days less than last year. This shows that a reasonable tax policy should contain illegitimate income, not just collect taxes and fees based on assets.
2. How will China collect property tax in the future?
Compared with the US real estate market, the situation in China is more complicated. The resources of first-tier cities are too concentrated, the national economy depends on the real estate market, the population is too large, and the mother-in-law economy leads to real estate regulation. If China wants to promote property tax collection and regulate the real estate market through real estate registration certificate, the most important thing is to divert resources first, break the monopoly of resources in first-tier cities, and let young people see that they can get high-quality resources and live a happy life in third-and fourth-tier cities, which can not only solve the problems in first-tier cities. Otherwise, affected by the relationship between supply and demand, high-quality housing will still be robbed, and tax increase will only increase the burden on buyers.
On this basis, in the future, China's tax policy can refer to developed countries, and control house prices and curb real estate speculation through the combination of taxes and fees, instead of adopting a "one size fits all" policy, otherwise the symptoms will not be cured, and the extra tax and fee costs of sellers will be passed on to buyers. For example, we can refer to the United States, where sellers can enjoy a profit allowance of $250,000 when they sell their houses, and a couple can enjoy a tax allowance of $500,000 when they declare the same. But if you sell two or three sets of investment houses, there will be no such allowance. Buyers will naturally choose sellers of owner-occupied houses with lower bids (sellers have tax relief, and in order to realize as soon as possible, they will naturally be lower than the investment property price), thus effectively curbing real estate speculation.
Controlling market development through taxes and fees will be longer and more stable than temporary policies, but "one size fits all" should be avoided. There is still a certain gap between China's tax and fee system and that of developed countries. For example, in the United States, oil prices protect the environment, and the more fuel a car consumes, the higher the maintenance cost, prompting people to choose cars with low fuel consumption. In China, the "one-size-fits-all" emission tax leads to the high cost of some self-priming vehicles with low fuel consumption, but it makes people choose turbine models that are not fuel-efficient but cheaper, which is not conducive to the original intention of environmental protection policies. I hope that in the future, the property tax can learn from the mature experience of foreign countries, collect taxes and fees in the process of buying multiple suites and selling multiple houses by loans, increase the cost of owning multiple houses, and thus mediate the relationship between supply and demand in the real estate market, so that many people have to sell houses, and those who have no houses have the opportunity to buy houses, thus effectively stabilizing market prices.
(Text/Lu Xin)