There is no plan to submit a property tax bill to lawmakers for deliberation this year, a spokesperson for the annual session of China's top legislature said Saturday.  

‍"There have been a lot of discussions on this issue, as such a bill involves a wide range of interests," Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the fifth session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC), said at a press conference.

A reform plan approved by the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee in 2013 made clear that the legislation of taxes in the property sector would be accelerated. Since then, a panel consisting of legislators, government officials and economic experts has been assigned to come up with a first draft of bill to be submitted for NPC review. However, the final schedule has not been announced given the scale and complexity of the issue.

The housing price in Chinese metropolitan cities has unexpectedly bumped in the past 2 years despite a series of policies carried out with the attempt to cool down the market. According to a survey conducted by eastmoney.com, issues related to housing prices turned out to be the highest priority of public concern ahead of the Two Sessions meeting, with almost half of the interviewees saying they are highly concerned. When asked about what measures should be taken to tackle the problem, 53 percent of them opted for property taxes, 23.1 percent believed in an increase of land supplies and another 15.3 percent preferred stricter restrictions on transaction and loan. 

China's current housing tax mechanism mainly taxes development and sales of a property, without taxing home ownership or the market value of homes. As part of the efforts to cool the growing public complaints over runaway housing prices, China had introduced a trial property tax in cities like Chongqing and Shanghai in 2010.

(With input from Xinhua)