OREANDA-NEWS. January 15, 2015. China's top two coal areas, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi, have set their coal resource tax at nearly 10%, the upper end of Beijing's limit, but many other provinces have set it at around 2% in an effort to help miners.

According to local government websites, the resource tax for the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia and Shanxi province has been set at 9% and 8% of the sales value respectively, while the tax in the third-largest producing area of Shaanxi province was set at 6.1%.

The changes, which took effect from January 1st, are part of a broader resource tax reform rolled out by Beijing to levy tax on coal based on the sales value instead of production.

The State Council, China's cabinet, has allowed local governments to set their own tax rates at between 2% and 10%.

In a bid to ease the financial burden of struggling miners, Beijing also ordered provincial authorities to scrap all other miscellaneous charges.

While the tax rates set by Inner Mongolia and Shanxi were high, analysts said tariffs in most provinces were lower than expected and would support miners, which have been buffeted by a slump in coal prices since 2012.

According to media reports, tax rates for the provinces of Henan, Hunan and Guangxi province were set at between 2% and 2.5%.

Mr Thomas Deng, a coal analyst with consultancy IHS-C1 Energy, said that "Inner Mongolia and Shanxi rely heavily on coal for fiscal revenue so they can't afford to have a low tariff."