The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress hold a meeting at the Great Hall of People in Beijing June 29, 2007. [Xinhua]

China's top legislature Friday passed proposals on authorizing the State Council to reduce or cancel tax on interest accrued from bank deposits and proposals on a massive sale of special T-bonds.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress voted in favor of an income tax law revision that gave the State Council the power to adjust the interest tax.

"The imposition, suspension or reduction of interest tax on bank savings, as well as specific methods thereon, are subject to the decision of the State Council," said the amended law.

Lawmakers also gave the go-ahead for the Ministry of Finance to issue 1.55 trillion yuan of special treasury bonds to finance the purchase of foreign exchange reserves for the yet-to-be-established State Forex Investment Company.

Interest tax

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Analysts expect the State Council to initially halve the current interest tax rate to 10 percent. Should inflation continue to grow, then the cabinet could cancel the tax completely. However, there are also calls for the abolition of the tax altogether.

The tax adjustment will be the authorities' latest attempt to make the real interest rate positive and discourage the diversion of bank deposits to the stock market.

Currently, the benchmark one-year deposits carry an interest rate of 3.06 percent. However, given the 20 percent interest tax, the actual yield is just 2.45 percent.

That return is well below the inflation rate as measured by the consumer price index, which hit a two-year high of 3.4 percent after rising 3.0 percent in April and 3.3 percent in March.

If the real interest rate remains negative for a long time, it will do no good to the economy, said assistant central bank governor Yi Gang last weekend.

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