The “homestead” in rural China has always been residential land owned by farmers who can enjoy it for free, but the government is planning to impose a comprehensive levy on the use of homesteads, with the government in the town of Shibaogu in Xinxiang, Henan province, recently taking the lead in implementing the levy policy. Some commentators say that local governments are now in financial straits and that farmers are inevitably being targeted for harvesting.
Chinese farmers have entered the era of fee-based use of their homesteads. According to mainland media reports, a recent open letter posted in the town of Shibo Gu, Yanjin County, Xinxiang City, Henan Province, mentioned the need to set standards for “one house for one family, one house for one family,” and that farmers with only one child would be considered one family, while those with two or more children but only one son would be considered one family, and those with two or more sons would be considered one family. (c) Residence, which is considered to be a single-family house and for which a “fee for use” is charged for the portion of the dwelling that exceeds the 167 square metre standard. For example, a house of 300 square meters will be charged 540 yuan per year. And a 500 square meters house, need to pay 2,455 yuan per year.
The above news has caused a big stir. Rural residents are questioning the abolition of multi-family houses in rural areas when cities can have multiple houses.
Farmers living on homesteads strongly oppose the imposition of user fees
He Huiling, a resident of Luoyang, Henan province, who lives in the countryside, said in an interview with the station that the residential base is the land left by his ancestors, and this kind of government fee is definitely not good for the farmers: “It’s definitely unfair to the farmers, and now there is no restriction on commercial housing, so why should the residential base, which is the basis of survival, be charged, I think it’s unreasonable. I don’t think it’s reasonable to charge a fee for a residential base, because I’ve never heard of it before, and in recent years, it’s been said that the land should be righted. Many times before the survival of the land, farmers have no certificate are not sure, ancestors passed down more homestead base.”
Mainland media have reported that the Chinese government is charging rural homestead users a fee, once it is rolled out across the country, involving more than 500 million farmers. In response, Ho Wai-ling said the benefits of the government’s no-cost fee scheme are huge: “The country’s rural population is still the majority, and if they do, the people will have a problem with it. The people have to have a place to live.”
Back in 2015, China’s nationwide pilot of the so-called residential land reform had quietly begun in several places. Three years later, the authorities announced that the registration and certification of rural land rights had been largely completed, and that farmers in some provinces had already received the Rural Land Contracting and Management Right Certificate and the Real Estate Right Certificate for rural residential bases and houses, adding that “residential bases that do not comply with the Land Management Law will be charged a fee for paid use.”
Local housing stagnation only idea to farmers
Xu Zhigang, a legal practitioner in Xuchang, Henan province, told the station that the local area is currently inventorying farm land in preparation for the fees: “We are now inventorying homes in the countryside here, saying that it is a right to issue you a certificate of title. This is obviously to inventory your home first before charging fees. The state must be short of money now, so it’s robbing money from all sides.”
Mr. Wang, a Zhengzhou scholar, believes that now that Henan Province is the first to charge some of its home-base users, the next step is the country: “This is something that will happen sooner or later, China’s rural land is a huge heartbreak (for the government), because they (farmers) all have home-bases, none of them will buy commercial housing, and it must be a fatal blow to the CCP’s economic system, which is based on real estate as the mainstay, and now So many empty rooms no one to buy, how to do, sooner or later the rural homestead will have to charge.”
In August of this year, Shandong, Jiangxi and Hainan launched their own home base fees program, which “a family of a house” in excess of the area, in accordance with the charges per square meter 2.5 to 20 yuan calculation.
Some people are asking, the rural homestead base charges, the city’s property tax and how long? Some responded that it won’t be long before the city taxes city property.
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