With China's deadline for filing personal income tax returns only two business day way, some financial experts suggest the tax department has received barely 15 percent of the number of returns it is expecting.

This is the first year the State Administration of Taxation (SAT) is requiring high-income earners -- those whose annual incomes are more than 120,000 yuan (US$15,400), to file personal income statements. The deadline is April 2.

The tax department says as of March 26 it had received only 1.18 million tax declarations.

The director of SAT's press office, Niu Xinwen, told Xinhua that the number of expected income tax returns is a secret but a professor of finance at People's University says there are likely six to seven million people who earned more than 120,000 yuan last year in China.

The Beijing Local Taxation Bureau says there are 350,000 people in the capital alone who earn more than 120,000 yuan a year.

An Tifu, a retired professor of finance at People's University, predicts only 20 percent of those who are required to file income tax returns will have done so by the deadline.

An unnamed official with SAT warned that those who fail to declare their incomes will face fines of between 2,000 to 10,000 yuan. People who falsely report their incomes can be fined up to 50,000 yuan. Penalties for evading taxes can equal five times the amount of unpaid tax and a jail term.

Someone who earns 240,000 yuan a year or less is taxed at a basic rate of 20 percent.

Tax authorities say they have already set up files on 20 million taxpayers across the country.

The new requirement to report annual income will ensure that those who earn the most pay the most and will help narrow the gap between rich and poor.

(Xinhua News Agency March 31, 2007)