Tax fears not baseless

A huge hidden deficit in China's social security funds has for long made the overhauling of the country's public finance mandatory in order to replenish the all-important but under-funded pension accounts.

But Finance Minister Xie Xuren's recent suggestion on how the problem could be fixed has sparked more fear than hope among the public. In an article published on April 1, Xie said the government was studying the feasibility of collecting a new payroll tax for social security.

The idea of imposing an extra social security tax on salary earners must be very appealing to policymakers who are eager to narrow the social security fund gap that has widened to trillions of yuan, as estimated through various methods.