The overall tax reform in central China's Hunan Province reduced
5.58 billion yuan (about US$675 million) burden for the farmers
during the past six years.
Every farmer benefited a 108 yuan (about US$13) reduction, said
the governor Zhou Bohua at the provincial rural tax and fee reform
conference Thursday.
The official said Hunan started its reform on rural tax and fee
systems in 1990 in an effort to standardize the tax burdens on
farmers and eliminate the growing administrative and arbitrary
fees.
Since 2004, the province began to exempt the farmers from the
agricultural taxes, which intensified the reform, said Zhou.
He said the tax reform standardized the rural distribution
system and boosted the comprehensive reforms in the
countryside.
(Xinhua News Agency July 8, 2005)