CRI听力:No Tax on Property Certificate Name Changes

The 'Third Interpretation' of China's Marriage Law" has created ripples throughout Chinese society and has the potential to create rifts between couples. In addition to the controversy caused by debates regarding marriage and home ownership, the tax bureau of the city of Nanjing initially said that they'd require a tax to be levied when adding a spouse's name to a home ownership certificate, and the tax rate would be about three to four per cent of the property's value. After that, cities like Wuhan, Chengdu and Qingdao all said they would follow suit. Now the central government has notified the whole country that there would be no taxes like this.

Professor Zhu Qing from the People's University of China says the clarification will help ease the public's concerns.

"Whether adding a spouse's name on the house ownership certificate bestows property upon them, and thus should be taxed, is a matter with different explanations and understandings across the country. This time, the Tax Bureau under the Ministry of Finance has provided a uniform lawful explanation on this dispute, which will help the country make unanimous policies on this issue."

Some experts argued that the tax should be levied once the ownership changed. So they believe that adding a spouse's name to the ownership certificate does make some changes regarding the ownership of the house, which should be included under tax laws. However, at the same time, they also admit that the ownership still belongs to the same family, which can be exempt.

But the argument about whether to levy the tax has not affected the result that more women are asking their husband to add their names to the house's ownership certificates. At the Property Management Bureau in Suzhou, the register lobby is crowded with spouses who have come to add names.

"It's up to her, my wife, it's ok whether she wants to add her name or not."

"I think females need to add their names in order to protect our benefits. Otherwise, our rights can't be protected if we get divorced."

Some law experts think the new interpretation of the marriage law goes against the international legislation trends on marriage. Researcher Liu Weimin is from the China Marriage Law Institute.

"For example, in Japan, the female can get 70 percent of the whole property value if she gets divorced. Seemingly in China, we've been trying to treat men and women equally, but in fact, we've regressed."

According to the statistics from Chongqing, over the last two weeks, couples getting married have reduced by 30 percent, with more people applying for a single status certificate in order to protect their property before marriage. The data provided by the Centaline Property Company shows that more than 60 percent of home buyers between the ages of 25 to 29 in Beijing are male and 80 percent of them bought their houses before their marriage.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.