Baby property owners emerging
25/8/2003 14:35
Baby homebuyers have been emerging in Shanghai, a result of a rush of
home buy by local young parents, who register their children as the owners of
the new homes, the Shanghai Evening News said.
This registration is conducted
in an attempt to avoid possible heritage taxes, the same report said.
Though
China doesn't levy heritage tax so far, many people are expecting the country
will soon introduce the tax amid its efforts to perfect its tax collection
system and tune it into the international practice.
"It's not bad to buy a
home now, as the housing prices has kept rising," said a local young father
interviewed by the Shanghai Evening News.
The father, whose name is not
specified in the report, has bought a villa in the city's west area for 800,000
yuan (US$96,800) for his two-year-old son.
"Since I'm sure to leave the home
to my son, it's a good idea to register him as the owner of the property as soon
as I ink the purchase deal," he said.
"That could save me a possible heritage
tax when I transfer the property to my son years after, if the tax is introduced
by that time," the father added.
Most of the local baby-owned homes are
mid-to-high-end projects bought by wealthy or white-collar young parents like
the young father, industry sources said.
They said at a property project in
the city's west area, some 3 percent of the owners are under-age
children.
Since China doesn't ban kids from buying homes, it's legal to
register a baby as the owner of a property, officials with the city's housing
and land resources administration said.
But the officials don't encourage
people to rush to buy home in their young kids' names.
"After all, the
heritage tax is still high in the air," they said.
Jane Chen/ Shanghai Daily news
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