From Ban Yue Tan/Xinhua News Agency (in Chinese), translated by CDT (link):
Village and township debts, after the rural taxation reform, has become a key potential source of complaints from village cadres and rural instability. It is learned that, by 2004, the country’s total amount of debts at the village and township levels went behond 600 billion renminbi, or $75 billion.
Many village cadres had to pay out of their own pockets, or get loans from rural credit cooperatives, to fill tax and fee quotas handed down from their superior townships. Then they would have a hard time collecting taxes from farmers, especially since the central government decided to eliminate agricultural taxes.
