China eases tax compliance burdens by reform, technology: report

A new report released on Tuesday says reforms and new technology have eased compliance burdens for taxpayers in China.

According to Paying Taxes (PT) 2018 report, released by the World Bank Group and PwC Global, China's Paying Taxes worldwide ranking is 130 in 2016, with the compliance hours recording a 20% decrease from 259 hours in 2015 to 207 hours last year.

The report says China's State Administration of Taxation has made concerted efforts in nurturing a taxpayer-friendly environment by focusing more on improving quality services to taxpayers.

To achieve that goal, China's tax authorities have taken such measures as streamlining tax payment procedures, upgrading tax service hotlines, providing innovative tax services through online or mobile apps and more.

The report adds that reforms and technology have also contributed to the decrease of China's tax compliance hours.

Reforms include replacing corporate business taxes with value-added tax (VAT), which prevents double-taxation issues.

VAT invoice verification has also been simplified, allowing VAT payers with better tax credit ratings to verify their input VAT invoices digitally, which is much less time-consuming.

The technologies the report notes include "Internet + Taxation Initiative" launched in 2015, which unlocks the potential of big data to benefit taxpayers, as well as "Golden Tax III" rolled out nationwide in 2016, which integrates all previous tax-related systems into one, so that tax compliance procedures can be standardized, eliminating duplicate filing and eventually enhancing the tax authorities' efficiency.