"Fined 900 Times for Selling Defective Buchu"… Controversy Over 'Covering Finances with Fine Bomb' in China

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[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Sumi] It has come to light that a local government in Shanxi Province, China, imposed an excessive fine on a vegetable vendor, sparking controversy. Some have raised suspicions that local governments are unfairly collecting taxes and excessively issuing fines to supplement their financial revenues.

According to China Central Television (CCTV) on the 28th, the State Council of China recently launched an investigation into the local government of Yulin City, Shanxi Province, regarding the imposition of a fine of about 10 million won on vegetable vendor Mr. A.

Last October, 1kg of garlic chives sold by Mr. A was deemed unfit for consumption by authorities. Mr. A explained, "Out of 3.5kg of garlic chives, I sold 2.5kg, and the authorities collected the remaining 1kg and then issued the unfit judgment." Subsequently, he paid an unfair profit penalty of about 20 yuan (approximately 3,800 won) on the grounds that he profited from selling substandard garlic chives.

The problem was the fine imposed on Mr. A. Yulin City fined him 66,000 yuan (about 13 million won) for selling low-quality vegetables.

Mr. A protested this decision. He said, "Selling substandard vegetables was wrong, but the fine was excessively imposed," and submitted a petition to the central government. He expressed frustration, "Even if I had sold all the problematic garlic chives, the unfair profit would have been only about 70 yuan (approximately 14,000 won), so how does it make sense to impose a fine more than 900 times that amount?"

According to CCTV, compared to the local Yulin City Market Supervision Administration's crackdown on about 50 small vendors since last year, which resulted in a total fine of 50,000 yuan (about 9.7 million won), the fine imposed on Mr. A was considered excessive. Yan Yandong, Deputy Director of the Yulin City Market Supervision Administration, also admitted, "Certainly, the fine was unfairly imposed and there was a problem," the media reported.

Meanwhile, recently in China, cases of local governments generating financial revenue through fines have been occurring one after another, causing controversy.

According to China's state-run Xinhua News Agency, traffic violation fines in some northern regions reached 30 million yuan (about 5.84 billion won) in a single year, accounting for one-third of the total financial revenue.

On a road in Foshan, Guangdong Province, 620,000 people were fined 120 million yuan (about 23.38 billion won) for violations. This led to criticism that "road markings were irrationally drawn to collect revenue through fines."

In Bazhou City, Hebei Province, last year, the government was caught by the State Council for unfairly collecting 700 million yuan (about 136.35 billion won) in taxes from street vendors who were exempt from taxation and from companies under various pretexts.

In fact, looking at the revenue from fines and confiscations in China last year, amounts increased compared to the previous year in 80 out of 111 cities. Specifically, Qingdao collected 4.377 billion yuan (about 851.2 billion won), an increase of 127%. Other cities such as Lushan (155%), Sucheng (133%), Changzhou (110%), and Yibin (105%) also saw increases of over 100%.

In this regard, some have pointed out that local governments facing financial difficulties due to increased expenditures on COVID-19 prevention measures are excessively collecting taxes and issuing fines. It is argued that fines, which are disciplinary measures for illegal acts, are being used by some local governments to supplement their financial revenues.

In response, the State Council has strengthened supervision of related actions and instructed that administrative penalties and fine collections be conducted fairly and reasonably. It also prohibited using fines as a means to supplement financial revenue or ranking performance based on fine collection achievements.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.