Shanghai Daily news

Shanghai's new tax rebate policy, which is reserved for low- and mid-income families, has offered financial aid to 606 households in its first month, the local housing authority said yesterday.
Effective on December 1, the policy offers tax rebates to families buying apartments costing less than 250,000 yuan (US$30,120), or smaller than 90 square meters and priced below 3,500 yuan per square meter. It is valid for purchases from June 1, 2003 to May 31, 2008.
The policy allows the targeted families to get up to a 15 percent rebate in the property value of the first home they buy.
Jointly drafted by the Shanghai Housing and Land Administrative Bureau and Shanghai Finance and Taxation Bureau, the new tax policy spells out clearly the definition of low- and mid-income families in a bid to exclude the rich from benefiting from the tax rebate.
In 2003, for instance, the criterion was that the annual income of the family should be below 13,250 yuan per capita.
The city's average disposable income was 14,867 yuan per capita last year, one of the highest in the country but not high enough to keep up with Shanghai's soaring housing prices. By the end of last year, Shanghai's average housing price was up to 6,000 yuan per square meter.
The 606 families bought apartments totaling 32,284 square meters costing 121.4 million yuan last month, the housing bureau reported.
With relatively lower housing prices, Baoshan, Pudong and Minhang districts saw most applicants among the city's 18 districts and one county - more than 77 families - applying in the first month. No family in Jing'an District got tax rebate.
The policy required that the family applying for the tax rebate should not have bought a residential property in Shanghai, even budget homes, before.