Liang Jiangtao (Shanghai Business Daily): The Ninth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (1996-2000) and Long-term Objectives for 2010 approved by the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, made a statement about "phasing in inheritance and gift taxes." In 2004, the Interim Regulations on Inheritance Tax was promulgated. Both set a legal foundation for levying inheritance tax. As for a social foundation, on the one hand are the growing numbers of high-income earners; on the other is the public's will of making high-income earners more socially responsible. Therefore, China now has solid foundations to levy inheritance tax.

Not ready yet

Wang Pan (Youth Times): Some law experts think inheritance tax is a trend, which will surely encourage wealthy Chinese people to devote themselves to charity. In fact, Western magnates donate to charity in a manner having religious overtones—atonement. So, we shouldn't overestimate the significance of inheritance tax for charity cause in China.

Another expected significance about inheritance tax is narrowing the wealth gap. Indeed China has very serious polarization between rich and poor. Wealthy people live an extravagant life and often show off while poor people become slaves to home mortgages and medical and education payments. People place high hopes on inheritance tax. But we should also see it is a fact the function of narrowing any wealth gap the tax has played in Western countries won't necessarily happen in China. Most wealth in China is not transparent. Inheritance tax should be based on a developed taxation system. But it's difficult to monitor those high-income earners' illegal income, not to mention taxing them for inheritances. Conscience? That's something we shouldn't trust.

The positive aspects of inheritance tax, such as promoting charity and narrowing the rich-poor gap, need further studies, while the impacts are quite obvious. In the circumstance of the existing global financial crisis, before our economic restructuring efforts bear fruit, inheritance tax would be harmful to economic development in China.

Bi Xiaozhe (China Business Herald): People with the least amount of knowledge about the economy know although implementing inheritance tax like Western countries is beneficial for increasing high-income earners' social responsibility and adjusting income distribution, the real problem is whether this kind of tax is suitable to be widely implemented in China in accordance with social development trends.

In November 2005, Lou Jiwei, then Vice Minister of Finance, said China had no plan to levy inheritance tax since its introduction should be based on transparency of individual properties. In China, there is already difficulty in levying individual income tax due to the lack of related information, not to mention inheritance tax.

China, with a huge population, has considerable difficulties in establishing a system of individual information. In the circumstance of there being transparent information about only part of population and non-transparency about others, inheritance tax will finally be imposed only on the former, which is apparently unfair.

Each citizen is part of a society with similar traditional concepts. Leaving property to descendants may be the choice of most Chinese people. Most people surveyed by the consultancy agency of China Youth Daily may deny or reject the tax based on that practical consideration. In all, combining all those social realities, disapproval of inheritance tax is understandable and shows clear-headed reasonableness.

Wu Jie (www.people.com.cn): Without a doubt, levying inheritance tax is one way of narrowing the rich-poor gap, but it may be less effective than expected due to a large lag effect. From this point of view, if the government really wants to narrow the wealth gap, it should put more emphasis on intensive taxation of high-income earners. Compared with other people, high-income earners are often beyond tax supervision. Therefore, strengthening supervision of them and increasing the rate of individual income tax will be more effective in narrowing the wealth gap.

He Cheng (www.people.com.cn): Levying inheritance tax with the purpose of narrowing the wealth gap is actually an act of discriminating against the rich. First, the government should encourage the rich to reinvest to create more value for society rather than levying inheritance or gift taxes on them. Second, despite considerable inheritance, high-income earners have already legally paid taxes on individual income. Inheritance and gift taxes are doubling up, which is not in accordance with social equity.