The landlord should pay the tax: if you're a legal resident, they are supposed to claim the rental income and pay the tax. The property taxes should be included in the rent, as it's the owner's responsibility, not the renter's.

This was the long battle I had with my last landlord in GZ and was a last minute surprise he pulled on me (perhaps you have the same landlord).

If you went through an agent, you need to contact them and find a resolution to the problem. If not, you're pretty much stuck with the "arrangement" unless you make plans to move elsewhere ASAP.

Good luck.

NEVER paid tax on an apartment, nor should you.

The landlord is responsible for tax filing and payment, not you.

Looks like you've got yourself a greedy landlady, prepare yourself for when the time comes to get back your deposit.

What the others said - because rent is a form of income for the owner, and the owner is therefore responsible for paying the tax on that income - not you! In fact, the tax should be coming out of the rent paid to the landlord - like any other income people receive (except bonuses, here in China).

The 'actual' tax on this rent should be about 20-25% - presuming that the owner is earning more than a few thousand a month from their normal job.

OTOH, if you're after a fapiao (official receipt), then yes, the owner might ask you to pay the tax to the tax dept so that you can get your hands on a real one of these. Since most owners don't pay tax, then they don't get the fapiao from the tax deptartment, which they then can't give to you, for you to get your rent allowance from work! And, thus, you're basically paying extra to get the receipt .. Rude, but TIC, and rude is a cultural trait.

Now, this is actually a stupid idea from this owner, so perhaps there's been a mis-communication - perhaps what was meant was the "property management fee".

I have to pay the landlords rent tax. Seems to be common practice in Guangzhou. The landlords have avoided paying the rent tax for years, even with foreigners. Then GZ implemented a policy that for foreigners to get the temporary registration form for where they lived, the rental contract had to be registered with the tax office first. Obviously the landlords don't want to pay this! If they rent the place to Chinese people they can avoid it. So not much choice really for us. If the landlord pays the tax then you can guarantee they'll have increased the rent to cover it. So we pay it one way or the other. 

I see they finally changed their system to better accommodate foreigners. 

Some five years ago I had the same problem, through an agent I ended up renting an apartment which the landlord was not paying taxes on, and at that time the landlord and the foreign tenant had to go to the housing bureau together to sign a government recognized/notarized lease agreement.  My landlord resisted, police didn't want to help, in fact their recommendation was to move which I ultimately did after 6 months later after too much frustrating back and forth between my landlord and local police.

I would have been more than happy to have paid the tax myself but back then it wasn't an option.  You guys should be happy because often a lot of properties that are tax paid are also price inflated -- especially for foreigners.  You want to pay 3000/month tax-in or 2200/month plus a 220 tax payment for the same room?