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The finances of China’s county-level governments are unstable and unsustainable as the majority of their fiscal income comes from sources other than taxation, the nation’s top auditor said.

 

About 60 percent of revenue raised last year by 54 counties investigated by the National Audit Office wasn’t derived from taxes, Liu Jiayi, the head of the agency, told a meeting of the legislature yesterday, according to a transcript of his speech on the audit office’s website. Total fiscal revenue at those counties rose 17 percent to 112 billion yuan ($17.6 billion) last year, Liu said.