China to set up system to gather information on individual income

China is stepping up efforts to establish a system to gather information about every individual's income and property, a move Chinese economic experts said could facilitate the government to make more precise economic policies.

The Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform passed an overall plan to create an individual income and property information gathering system during its 35th meeting on Tuesday.

The meeting stressed that the establishment of the information system should be based on the existing information resources, and the scope of information collection should be made in accordance with the laws and regulations, according to the news portal nbd.com.cn on Wednesday.

It also emphasized that the management of the system should be divided into different classes. A fully traceable security system should be accordingly put in place, in a bid to protect individual information under the law and to make sure such information is utilized in a standard and secure fashion, said the report.

No further details on the plan were revealed on Tuesday.

"Information collection on individual's income and property is a fundamental part of national governance as it gathers accurate economic information at micro level, and it will help the government make policies on matters including tax and housing property tax reforms in a more sensible way," Kuang Xianming, director of the research center for economy under the China Institute for Reform and Development, told the Global Times.

Kuang also cautioned that many factors can hinder such data collection work, noting that monitoring cash flow as integral part of income information is a universal problem.

When asked if such information collection practice may be used to infringe upon the citizen's privacy, Kuang said that "supporting regulations and laws will be passed as the plan stresses to safeguard information security," while noting that "the 'notion' of privacy has been misused in the past as loopholes by public figures especially the government officials to cover their financial malpractices."

Yang Zhiyong, a research fellow at the National Academy of Economic Strategy under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was quoted by the report as saying that the information collection should also involve third-party agencies apart from the tax departments.

And it should be mandatory for agencies and departments to cooperate rather than simply coordinate with the tax authorities.