www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

   

Road maintenance fee sets debate rolling

By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-11-03 06:48

China has been collecting an annual road maintenance fee from vehicle owners since the 1960s to fix and build roads.

Of course, back then government agencies and business enterprises paid the fee; they basically had the only vehicles on the road. People didn't own cars as they do now.

But in the past few months, a controversy has been raging over whether such a fee is even legal. One professor in Beijing believes it is not, and many people agree with him.

Zhou Ze submitted a letter to the National People's Congress on Monday, calling for the regulations on the collection of the road maintenance fee to be re-examined.

Zhou, a formal legal news writer, and now a lawyer and an assistant professor at China Youth University for Political Science, said he believed the collection of road maintenance fees, totalling about 540 billion yuan (US$67.5 billion) in the past six years, has been illegal since 1999.

He expressed his opinion in an article in Procuratorial Daily in August that aroused wide debate in the media and among the public.

Zhou was asked to write a commentary on a startling piece of news from Zhengzhou, capital of Central China's Henan Province.

Road maintenance fees are collected by local administrations under the Ministry of Communications. The local administrations notify car owners through the media that they need to pay the next year's road maintenance fee, which varies by location. In Beijing, for example, a small-car owner pays 1,440 yuan (US$180) a year.

The communications administration in Zhengzhou told a car owner who had not paid the road maintenance fee since 2002 to pay 490,000 yuan (US$61,250) in back fees and late fines.

A public outcry arose over how the total amount due could be so high.

Zhou said that when he studied relevant laws and regulations, he found that the collection of a road maintenance fee is not legal at all, not to mention the way the overdue fine is calculated.

"The revised Law on Highways states the legislative intent clearly, which is to abandon the road maintenance fee," Zhou said.

Article 36 of the law says that funds for highway maintenance should be acquired through collection of a surcharge paid by units and individuals in purchase of petrol. The State Council, it says, shall set specific procedures for the purpose.

"The law does not provide for the collection of a road maintenance fee," Zhou told China Daily in a phone interview. "Citizens have not needed to pay the fee since October 31, 1999, when the revised highway law was enacted."

China does have a pilot programme to collect a petrol tax in Hainan Province, but so far, the road maintenance fee remains intact.

The Ministry of Communications has given no explanation or response to the issue so far. It did, however, issue a circular at the end of October saying the fee for 2007 will be collected as usual in December.

Local communications administrations cite a circular issued by the State Council in 2000 as the basis for their position. It states that, before the fuel tax collection starts, road maintenance fees should be collected.

The State Council also approved and announced a reform plan on taxes and fees of communications and vehicles drafted by several ministries in the circular.

The reform plan said that collection of the road maintenance fee would be stopped when the petrol surcharge is collected.

"According to the second sentence of Article 36, the State Council is authorized by the National People's Congress to issue such an administrative rule," said Zhang Zhuting, professor at the Beijing Communications Management Institute for Executives.

The administrative rule says clearly that the road maintenance fee will be collected until the implementation of the petrol tax, Zhang said.

Protecting its interests?

Both Zhou Ze and Jiang Ming'an, a professor at Peking University, disagreed.

"The State Council is authorized to set specific procedures and steps for the purpose of collecting fuel tax, not to maintain the status quo in collecting road maintenance fees," Jiang told China Daily.

Jiang believed that the government's failure to come up with a specific procedure to collect the petrol surcharge is an "omission."

Doing nothing in six years after the Highway Law was revised, the government has used more than an appropriate time for such an authorization, he said.

"It is the communications administration that makes every effort to delay the fuel tax because it wants to protect its own interests," Zhou said.

That's because the petrol tax, whenever it takes effect, will be collected by the State Administration of Taxation. The central government will take 40 per cent of the revenue and distribute the rest to local governments.

The local communications administrations, therefore, may face a huge gap in administrative costs.

They also will have to move thousands of workers who now collect road maintenance fees to other jobs.

For their part, Zhou and those who agree with his view have no choice but to wait.

"I have no idea when my suggestion will be heeded, but this is the only way that I can think of to ask the government to stop the illegal collection of road maintenance fees," he said.



Top China News  
Today's Top News  
Most Commented/Read Stories in 48 Hours
主站蜘蛛池模板: 欧美视频在线一区二区三区 | 亚洲在线偷拍自拍 | 香蕉毛片a | 日本wwwwwwwww| 国产高清a毛片在线看 | 中文字幕日本不卡 | 亚洲成aⅴ人在线观看 | 亚洲精品资源网在线观看 | 色老头一区二区三区在线观看 | 成人免费视频国产 | 亚洲国产精久久久久久久春色 | 国产精品自在欧美一区 | 久久免费精彩视频 | 国产精品青草久久福利不卡 | 国产黄三级三·级三级 | 成人欧美一区二区三区在线 | 国产在线观看xxxx免费 | 日韩一级片免费在线观看 | 美女视频免费黄 | 91热久久免费频精品黑人99 | 欧美一级看片a免费观看 | 国产成人免费在线视频 | 黄色网址在线免费看 | 久久在视频 | 国产精品毛片天天看片 | 老人久久www免费人成看片 | 日韩视频观看 | 亚洲欧美在线视频 | 殴美一级视频 | 成人午夜在线视频 | 欧美成人免费观看bbb | 欧美一级www片免费观看 | 亚洲精品一区二区三区在 | 欧美性色生活片免费播放 | 黄色香蕉视频 | 亚洲国产第一区二区香蕉 | u影一族亚洲精品欧美激情 va欧美 | 扒开双腿猛进入喷水免费视频 | www.亚洲天堂.com| 三级国产在线观看 | 国产欧美日本 |