Across China, many local governments are on the brink of insolvency. Some cities have reduced pay for civil servants. Cuts to municipal health insurance have triggered street protests.Central government bailouts are a possibility to rescue cities from their deep budget problems, but China hasn’t turned to a source of revenue that would be an obvious option in other countries: property taxes.In China, where the government owns the land, localities almost never tax homeowners to support services like schools. Cities rely instead on selling long-term leases to real estate developers. Revenue from these land sales has plunged in the past year.Last month, after a decade-long effort that involved 100,000 workers, China’s central government said it had finally figured out who even owns 790 million apartments and other properties. That knowledge means officials in Beijing …
