law - Corporate tax, to unify, not to unify

One of the nicest illustration on how decisions in China come into being is the discussion on unifying the corporate tax regime. The National People's Congress has not discussed the proposal, writes The Standard, a de facto refusal of the Chinese lawmakers to accept the proposal by the government.
The preferential tax treatment for foreign companies is already under discussion for a decade and in the Chinese media the government sounds each year very resolute in announcing the system will be unified. Foreign companies have been lobbying against a too speedy unification, but the domestic forces to preserve the preferential treatment might be stronger. Chinese companies have 'moved' their headquarters mostly to Hong Kong, when the taxation became cheaper for foreign companies, making them 'foreign' in name. Those Chinese companies in Hong Kong are the best guarantee that the tax regime will not be unified any time soon.