There has been talk about taxing capital gains on the sale of residential properties and / or a flat tax on all real estate transactions for those who have owned their property less than a certain specified time.

Have these taxes actually been implemented yet? I think not.

well with my wife we owned a few houses in her town from 2003 till last month
we bought the first in 2003 when i came back to china and sold it 6 months later before it was even finished at the time there was not capital gain taxe
in 2004 we also sold one and still no taxe
then in 2005 i think it was they came up with a taxe covering 3 years. before u could sell the property without paying taxes on a gain (meaning if you sell before 3 years you have to pay taxes this is what i mean)
then they came up with 5 years instead of 3 years. so the last transaction we did we owned the place for 3 years we paid some taxes.

there may be other things involved but this is what we went through with my wife about taxes on properties from what i heard it was because they were trying to stop speculations a little bit

in the united state i do not know how long it is but i remember i paid some taxes on capital fain when i sold my house and i know in france it is 20 years or it used to be

some more infos would be welcome thought to make sure about it

From what I have heard, the tax has always been law, but has not been applied or collected until recently. I have also heard that it is not applied in all areas but is up to local districts to collect or not, and there are different methods for calculating.

Would welcome any further clarification (or is that impossible)

the only thing i can tell you is that in jiangsu province i had to pay capital gain taxes on our houses now the % i do not know i will have to ask my wife about it she is the one handling all this
it is a % of the gain added to the taxes you pay when you buy and sell a house or property we also had an office space that we sold and had to pay taxes too i will ask my wife if the % is the same for business or not
if she remember i will post it

We sold our house in 2002 and did not pay capital gains. In 2003 they instituted a capital gains tax if you flipped the property within 3 years - as mentioned above. I am not sure what it is now.. or how its being implemented. I also think that the province or locality has responsibility for the rate and the enforcement. I think the main issue to to discourage speculators.

However, best to talk to someone who is a real estate pro. These things are moving target and someone's opinion on a forum carries little weight when 20% of your gains are taken at closing.

20% taxe? on the capital gain? plus the taxe you pay because you are selling it becomes high i guess. so yes now people will be more carrefull for speculations

Logical that it depends on each city and even districts within the same city I guess. Is it 3 years or 5 that one needs to hold the property to escape the tax?

Is it really 20% on the profit? That seems very high.

It's 5 years. My dad sold our apartment last month, which we had owned for just over 5 years, so no capital gains tax.

if you read my first post this is what i said.
this is why our last house and office place we sold we paid taxes because we owned them 2 years and 3 years ..........
the previous one we did not pay taxe because we owned it 3 years and it was at this time only 3 years ownership
and the first one we sold in 2004 we paid nothing because at the time it was no taxe on capital gain in jiangsu province.

Wouldn't imposing a capital gains tax on real estate just serve to further drive up prices? I mean, the tax eventually gets passed on to the purchaser in the form of a higher asking price for the property.