"Several hundred farmers launched a street protest in the township of Fushan when a joint tax team tried to forcibly collect overdue taxes," a Communist Party official in Henan province told Reuters.

The angry farmers flipped over several vehicles belonging to the local party committee and court officials during the protest on Friday, he said.

Sporadic and sometimes violent protests have drawn attention to the plight of farmers burdened with heavy taxes and ad hoc fees levied by local officials.

Senior Chinese leaders have repeatedly vowed to reduce their tax burden and the government plans to slowly extend a pilot project in the eastern province of Anhui to replace the arbitrary fees and taxes with a single agricultural tax.

No injuries were reported in Friday's clash and a local police officer said no arrests had been made.

"The leaders of the protest will be dealt with according to the law when the investigation is over," the police officer said by telephone from Henan.

Some of the farmers had not paid their agricultural and "special produce" taxes since 1995, the party official said without elaborating.

Li Qiang, a spokesman for the U.S.-based rights group China Labour Watch, said in a statement some farmers involved in the protest had been arrested.

Taxes account for more than half of local farmers' incomes, which, in that region, averaged just 400 yuan ($48) a year, according to the statement.

The national average peasant net income on a per capita basis was about 2,250 yuan in 2000. (博讯boxun.com)