How China Is Putting a Property Tax on Homes, and Why: QuickTake

The history of private home ownership in Communist China is short, only a couple decades or so. But prices have skyrocketed so quickly that it now has some of the world’s most expensive housing markets. That’s widening the country’s wealth gap and leaving many people, particularly the young and poor, out in the cold.

Now, amid a broad effort by President Xi Jinping to promote “common prosperity,” authorities are inching ahead with long-debated plans to start taxing some residential property owners, partly to deter speculation and partly to address social inequality. Such a reform could have far-reaching implications ...