On Jan. 1, China instituted a new value-based tax on coal production to be implemented nationwide at a variable rate of 2-10 percent per ton. The tax is one of several fiscal reforms Beijing has put forward to ease local governments' reliance on land sales for revenue generation. That reliance helped drive China's post-2008 housing construction boom, but now, as home prices and sales fall steadily, it threatens local governments across the country with financial insolvency. Along with pilot programs in municipal bonds and property taxes, value-based resource taxes are meant to give local governments new ways to raise capital while unwinding the political and economic incentive structures that generated the worst excesses of China's government investment- and construction-led growth model . With the new coal production tax, provinces and regions are allowed — at least officially — to decide their own final rates.