As of August 20, Beijing's tax revenue had reached 47.84 billion yuan (5.78 billion US dollars), 11.04 billion yuan (1.33 billion US dollars) of which was personal income tax, a year-on-year rise of 29 percent.

An official with the municipal taxation bureau owed the drastic increase in personal income tax to rapid economic growth, high economic returns of local businesses, more personal income of local residents, and an efficient tax collecting system.

Statistics show that Beijing's personal income tax had surged by 67.3 percent annually during a decade from 1994 to 2003. Total personal income rose to 12.47 billion yuan (about 1.5 billion US dollars) last year from 120 million yuan (some 14.5 million US dollars) in 1994.

Meanwhile, the ratio of local personal income tax to total tax revenue also rose to 22.9 percent in 2003 from former merely two percent in 1994. The number of taxpayers increased from 115,000 in1994 to 6.4 million last year, an average annual increase of 56.3 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency  August 26, 2004)