China's tax authorities have postponed the announcement of the final number of high income earners that have reported their earnings due to technical reasons.

Motorcyclists ride past an office building of the tax administration in Shanghai in this undated photo. (file)

The annoucement, due on April 10, has to be delayed by several days to give the authorities more time to calculate figures from a few unwired local tax bureaus, said Li Linjun, spokesman for the State Administration of Taxation (SAT), according to the Oriental Morning Post.

"It wouldn't be too late, probably at the end of next week," Li was cited as saying.

The deadline passed on April 2 for taxpayers who make more than 120,000 yuan (US$15,400) a year to file their income returns with local tax authorities.

This is the first time the tax administration requires high-income earners to declare their annual incomes.

As of March 29, the tax authorities across the country had received 1.375 million declarations, far below the six to seven million such earners estimated by financial experts. 

Whether and how to punish those who failed to do so is currently a hot topic among experts as the population is too large. There is a general belief among the Chinese that the law no longer applies when a majority of people breach it.

Those who fail to declare their incomes will face fines of between 2,000 yuan and 10,000 yuan, according to a regulation released last year.

People who filed false statements can be fined up to 50,000 yuan while penalties for evading taxes can equal five times the amount of unpaid tax and a jail term, said the rule.

By April 1, some 250,000 people had declared their annual incomes in Beijing where, experts estimated, the number should be more than 350,000.

In northeastern Heilongjiang Province only a tenth of the expected number had done so, compared with less than a half in central Hunan Province.