Mooncakes fall foul of fairer taxation principle

The Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching. To celebrate the festival, it is customary for some institutions and companies to give employees mooncakes, which is considered conducive to team building and enhancing employees' sense of belonging. So media reports that tax will be levied on mooncakes has aroused public concern.

Why are the taxation authorities considering imposing a tax on mooncakes considering it won't "earn" much money for the authority? Although the revenue from individual income tax has increased rapidly in recent years, the overall amount of individual income tax still accounted only for 7.93 percent of China's overall tax revenue in 2016.

In fact, there's no specific rule or regulation to stipulate mooncakes should be taxed, but according to the law "material object earnings" should be taxed.