Chinese Communist Party Wealth Task Force Draws Criticism Over Officials’ Public Phone Numbers

Dark clouds loom over Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. (Feng Li/Getty Images)

[People News] Recently, the Chinese Communist Party in Changning, Hunan, and Habahe, Xinjiang, publicly released the personal mobile numbers of hundreds of party and government officials and department leaders. They claimed this was intended to 'further strengthen contact with the masses' and 'efficiently address urgent and difficult issues.' The CCP's official publication, 'Banyue Tan,' quickly published an article that praised this initiative for creating a direct channel for public appeals, while also criticizing it for potentially becoming 'new formalism'—with calls going unanswered, issues disappearing without resolution, and ultimately harming the government's credibility.

Furthermore, some scholars have openly stated that this approach violates administrative regulations, with leaders' mobile phones effectively turning into a substitute for the 12345 hotline, undermining their primary responsibilities, and essentially serving as a mere performance of 'one public announcement.'

Simultaneously, Bloomberg's in-depth report on September 27, 2026, titled 'China's Tax Rectification Exerts Unprecedented Pressure on Billionaires,' revealed a startling fact: the State Administration of Taxation of the CCP has established a series of special task forces specifically designed to track and tax the wealthy. Some of these teams are using a 'one-on-one' model to closely monitor the assets and tax situations of individual billionaires. These teams consist of local officials, tax inspection experts, and even regulatory personnel, with the goal of countering the large number of lawyers, tax consultants, and advisory teams employed by the super-rich.

At the annual meeting in January this year, Hu Jinglin, the Director of the State Administration of Taxation, emphasized the need to usher in a 'new era of taxation' for the $21 trillion economy. Over the past few months, tax authorities have been revising offshore trust regulations and have launched the largest tax collection initiative against local businesses in years, aiming to target over $17 trillion in wealth held by Chinese residents solely in Hong Kong.

Extreme estimates from Barclays analysts suggest that this tax collection effort could lead to tax bills as high as $100 billion for assets related to Hong Kong; meanwhile, a domestic tax lawyer estimates the actual figure to be between $15 billion and $25 billion. Some commentators have labeled this initiative as the 'fishing master' operation, or more bluntly, as 'the official formation of a special task force to rob the wealthy.' The downside is that wealth will be seized, but the upside is that the amount can still be negotiated.

Officials are keen to publicly share their mobile phone numbers, and both the aggressive confiscation of wealth from the rich by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and this practice can be viewed as extreme manifestations of what is referred to as the correct performance view in the Xi Jinping era. The CCP government can publicly display the mobile numbers of ordinary citizens, yet it refrains from disclosing the assets of officials. They create task forces to confront private tycoons while ignoring wrongful convictions and injustices.

Publicly sharing mobile phone numbers is a low-cost and approachable gesture, typically resulting in only a few complaint calls that can be easily delegated to subordinates. However, when officials publicly declare their assets, it allows the public to see the complete picture of their properties, savings, stock holdings, and relatives' business activities, which poses a genuine threat to their power. While China does have a property declaration system requiring leading officials to fill out forms annually, the details are never disclosed to the public, and the verification process is largely superficial. In contrast, special task forces targeting the wealthy operate with significantly higher efficiency, capable of conducting one-on-one surveillance without concern for costs, pursuing cases across provinces, and acting swiftly at any moment.

The reality is alarming. Bloomberg reports, citing informed sources, that Zhang Yong, co-founder of Haidilao, and his wife Shu Ping, sold 259 million shares through a family trust at a discount in September of this year, cashing out around $350 million. Sources indicate that the Shu family had previously received an 'unexpected tax bill,' leading to widespread speculation that this cash-out was intended to raise funds to cover taxes related to offshore trusts.

According to an announcement from the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation on July 24 regarding individual income tax matters related to offshore trusts, residents who transfer assets into offshore trusts are required to pay a 20% property transfer income tax. Additionally, any income generated during the trust's duration, whether distributed or not, must be reported annually with a 20% tax, retroactive to assets from 2023.

Analyses suggest that the tax payments related to dividends accumulated in the trust accounts of Zhang Yong and his wife could amount to several billion yuan. In a more dramatic case, a major shareholder of a company in Guangzhou received a tax bill of 100 million yuan and used the potential relocation of the business to Shanghai as leverage. In the end, local officials drastically reduced the tax amount to 5 million yuan, allowing for a negotiation margin of up to 95%. 

Moreover, affluent families are instructing consultants to seek out 'small banks that Beijing officials have never heard of' for storing their funds, as major banks like JPMorgan and UBS attract too much attention. Some billionaires are hastening their applications for foreign passports, concerned about the possible introduction of an 'exit tax' in the future. 

These incidents highlight the absurdity of the system and the ridiculous logic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP): there are channels for petitioning, but they are often accompanied by abductions and black jails; there is a constitution, and laws are plentiful, yet the discipline inspection commission can arrest at will, and the police can detain citizens arbitrarily; there is a Red Cross, but it is frequently accused of being greedy; there are representatives in the National People's Congress, but few dare to express dissent; there is a Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, but it never truly engages in consultation, only obeys and serves as a mouthpiece for the authorities. 

Currently, a dark joke has surfaced: special task forces can be created to rob the wealthy, yet they refuse to disclose the true financial status of the officials themselves. The local financial black hole of the CCP is spreading across the nation, with the fiscal self-sufficiency rate of 30 provinces and cities shockingly being negative. Land transfer fees have dropped from a peak of approximately 8.7 trillion yuan in 2021 to around 4.15 trillion yuan. Under fiscal pressure, targeting the wealthy has become the simplest and most brutal method of generating revenue.

The public disclosure of officials' mobile phone numbers may appear to open a window of communication, but in reality, it simply shifts issues that should be addressed through the petitioning system, the 12345 hotline, and disciplinary inspections to personal mobile phones. Once the initial enthusiasm wanes, calls go unanswered, and the problems persist. The existence of both the petitioning system and black jails is a mockery of the rule of law: while the constitution grants you the right to speak, military police silence you with tape. In stark contrast, special task forces targeting the wealthy operate efficiently, tracking tax issues on a one-to-one basis, while the government and state-owned enterprises owe over 100 trillion yuan to private companies, yet no investigations are conducted. Meanwhile, migrant workers, who toil throughout the year, are labeled as malicious salary seekers and become targets for the Chinese Communist Party's police stability maintenance efforts.

Officials are willing to share their mobile numbers publicly because it enhances their image of being 'connected to the people,' but they shy away from disclosing their personal assets. Without real oversight, asset transparency will remain confined to internal paperwork. The actions of the tax investigation task force resemble a violent display of wolves hunting for fresh prey.

If the petitioning system continues to be marred by abductions and black jails, if the law remains selectively applicable, if the discipline inspection commission and public security can wield power outside established procedures, if organizations like the Red Cross, the National People's Congress, and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference fail to fulfill their intended roles, and if one-to-one task forces can target the wealthy without imposing restrictions on power itself, then the public sharing of mobile numbers is merely a rebranding of old practices, and the task forces' actions are simply a means of self-preservation for those in power and a stopgap measure for financial crises.

If the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping do not resign, the conditions outlined above will continue to expand and prolong.

(Originally published by People News) △