Shanghai Volkswagen Automobile Co Ltd was China's top foreign-funded taxpayer last year, turning in 4 billion yuan (US$481 million), according to the State Administration of Taxation (SAT).

Other major foreign-funded car makers, along with big telecommunication firms, are on the list of top overseas taxpayers last year, which experts say reflects the robust growth and fat profits in the two sectors.

Among the top 10 overseas taxpayers last year, four are car markers and one is a car-selling company; of which three are German auto giant Volkswagen's joint ventures in China - Shanghai VW, Changchun-based First Automotive Works Volkswagen, and SAIC-VW Sales Co Ltd, a sales arm of Shanghai VW. The other two are Shanghai General Motors and Wuhan-based Dongfeng-Peugeot-Citroen.

The other five in the top 10 are in the telecommunications sector: Motorola (China), which contributed 2.18 billion yuan (US$262.6 million) and ranked fifth; and four mobile communication service providers - Beijing Mobile, Zhejiang Mobile, Jiangsu Mobile and Fujian Mobile, which are subsidiaries of Hong Kong-incorporated China Mobile (Hong Kong) Ltd.

According to the ranking list of the SAT's planning and statistics department, among the top 100 overseas tax payers, 16 are in the car industry, contributing 14.4 billion yuan (US$1.7 billion), 21 in telecommunications industry, turning in 13.62 billion yuan (US$1.64 billion) and 18 are in the power industry, paying 4.453 billion yuan (US$537 million).

Among domestic companies, traditional industries and infrastructure sectors, such as oil, car making, non-ferrous metals and processing industries, remained the most important tax sources, according to a SAT report.

Tax collectors found that the tobacco industry, with high tax rates, was the top contributor, followed by oil and gas; and steel-making.

The report said that although China has been taking measures to boost the tertiary industry, most in the sector remained small in size and few appear in the top 100.

"This signifies that there is still a long way to go to readjust the nation's economic structure," the report said.

Daqing Oilfield Co Ltd was the top domestic tax payer last year, contributing 17.5 billion yuan (US$2.1 billion); followed by PetroChina which paid 10.76 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion).

However, the report showed that many tycoons and their private firms didn't appear in the list of top private taxpayers as expected.

Only four of the 2002 Forbes list of top 100 rich people in the mainland were in the list of the top-50 private taxpayers. Hunan-based Broad Air Conditioning was the biggest, paying 127 million yuan (US$15.3 million); followed by Shanxi-based Haixin Steel, 115 million yuan (US$13.9 million).

The report said that among the 124 private firms which paid 5 million yuan (US$602,000) or above in taxes annually, 40 were reluctant to disclose their taxation information to the public.

"The sharp contrast between these rich people's fortune and the small amount of taxes they paid should attract a lot of attention," the report said.

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