Recently, another transportation company was punished and punished for falsely accepting invoices for refined oil products and issuing false transportation invoices. The flow of oil invoices into the transportation field carries high tax risks. Based on this case, this article intends to summarize the recent common problems with frequent false claims risks in transportation companies, and explain the tax-related risks and defense space of the companies involved and their upstream and downstream companies.

I. Case introduction

(I) Basic case facts

Company A is a logistics and transportation enterprise registered in Jiangsu Province, engaged in car-free transportation business. From November 2020 to June 2021, Company B obtained 220 special value-added tax invoices for imported refined oil with goods named automotive diesel, gasoline, etc. issued by Company A, with an amount of 20.55 million yuan and a tax amount of 2.67 million yuan. The total tax amount is 23.22 million yuan, and there are no other operating-related expenses. During the existence of Company A, it issued a total of 2,229 special value-added tax invoices to Company C and Company D located in Xinjiang, with an amount of 150 million yuan, a tax amount of 13.58 million yuan, and a total price and tax of more than 160 million yuan. After investigation, Company A concentrated on issuing large amounts of invoices in a short period of time. The transportation business noted on the invoices all occurred in Xinjiang, which was not in line with business practices. Moreover, there is no fund transaction between it and the downstream company D. After receiving the payment from company C, all the money was immediately returned to the private account controlled by Zhao through Zhao's private account. There was an abnormality in the fund transaction. In December 2021, Company B ran away and lost contact with it and had a large amount of tax arrears.

Based on the above situation, the Audit Bureau confirmed that the 220 special value-added tax invoices for refined oil accepted by company B and issued by company A and the special value-added tax invoices issued to downstream companies were all false.

(II) Trading model

In this transaction model, Company A is a refined oil trading company, Company B is a transportation company, and Companies C and D are shippers of the transportation business. It can be seen from the above case that Company B was registered in Jiangsu Province, but carried out transportation business in Xinjiang, thousands of miles away. It is inferred that there is obvious suspicion of false entry and false exit, thus creating the risk of false opening.

II. Why do transportation companies frequently fall into the risk of unrefined oil sales?

For transportation companies, when they do not have the transportation conditions themselves and entrust the transportation business to individual drivers and other actual carriers for specific completion, they should obtain special value-added tax invoices issued by the individual drivers from the tax authorities as input deductions. Vouchers for cost deductions, but due to low tax compliance of natural persons, in practice it is often the case that transportation companies issue transportation invoices to shippers, but individual drivers do not issue invoices, resulting in the dilemma of lack of input and costs. Until the promulgation of the “Announcement on VAT Issues including Tax-Free Filing for Cross-border Taxable Activities” (State Administration of Taxation Announcement 2017 No. 30, hereinafter referred to as “Announcement No. 30”), the above problems were alleviated to a certain extent, but with the traditional Under strict tax supervision, the behavior of oil price changing has ceased, and the focus has been turned to adjacent industrial chains. Transportation, chemical industry and other fields have become new paths for petrochemical ticket changing, thus giving rise to various new ticket changing models. Recently, many transportation companies have been dealt with and punished by the tax authorities for falsely accepting invoices for gasoline, diesel and other refined oil products or other non-refined oil invoices, and issuing special VAT invoices for transportation. From this, it can be found that many companies have common concerns. Tax risk points are briefly introduced in this article as follows:

(I) Business operations violate normal business logic

First, from the perspective of business scope, transportation companies should focus on transportation business. If they operate and manage their own fleets, their balance sheets should reflect their fixed assets. The company's balance sheet shows that the original value of fixed assets is low, which can indicate that the company does not have its own transportation vehicles. If it operates a transportation business without means of transportation, the input or cost should mainly be the transportation invoice issued by or on behalf of the actual carrier. Transportation companies do not have reasonable commercial purposes and purchase large amounts of gasoline, diesel and other refined oil products in a short period of time, which far exceeds normal transportation business needs and is inconsistent with business practices. There may be suspicions of falsely increasing inputs and costs or illegally purchasing special value-added tax invoices. .

Second, from the perspective of business qualifications, transportation companies do not have the relevant qualifications and capabilities for the production, processing, and storage of hazardous chemicals such as refined oil. They purchase large quantities of non-refined oil or other oil products that are not related to the repair and maintenance of vehicle parts. , and there are no business certificates and invoices for entrusted processing. Since the corresponding oil products cannot be directly used for transportation or entrusted carriage, they cannot be used for input deductions and pre-tax deductions by transportation companies. If a transportation company obtains such fuel stamps and directly issues transportation invoices, it is very easy for tax warnings to be triggered due to abnormal invoices. Precisely because this business does not comply with commercial logic, it is very likely that there are no real goods as the basis for transactions in related oil transactions.

(II) Abnormal fund collection and payment

In normal business operations, the supplier provides or transfers goods in the agreed manner, and the downstream buyer pays the corresponding payment and obtains an invoice. That is to say, in a simple model structure, there should be and only one one-way capital flow in the supply chain of goods or services. If a downstream enterprise obtains an invoice but fails to pay for the goods, or if the payment for goods is paid but then transferred back to the account under its control immediately or shortly after, it will be difficult to identify it as a normal transaction. If there is no capital exchange between the supply and demand parties, or there is a return of funds, etc., these are all abnormal fund collection and payment situations, which are not conducive to the determination of the authenticity of the transaction.

(III) Upstream companies fled and lost contact

According to the provisions of Article 2 of the "Announcement of the State Administration of Taxation on Issues Concerning the Identification and Handling of Special Value-Added Tax Invoices Issued by Fugitive (Missing) Enterprises" (State Administration of Taxation Announcement No. 76, 2016), the enterprises that have escaped and lost contact are still in business. If one of the following circumstances occurs during the period, the special value-added tax invoice issued in the corresponding period will be included in the scope of abnormal vouchers:

First, the names of the goods purchased and sold by the trading enterprise are seriously inconsistent; the production enterprise has no actual production and processing capabilities and no entrusted processing, or the production energy consumption is seriously inconsistent with the sales situation, or the purchased goods cannot directly produce the goods it sells and there is no commissioned for processing;

The second is those who simply run away without filing a tax return, or who file a false declaration by filling in the relevant columns of the VAT return to avoid the review and comparison by the tax authorities. The purchased goods cannot directly produce the goods sold and there is no entrusted processing.

Once an upstream enterprise escapes and loses contact, once the invoice issued by it is determined to be an abnormal voucher, unless it is verified that it meets the conditions for claiming deduction, the enterprise that obtained the abnormal voucher has not yet applied for deduction, and the deduction is not allowed for the time being; if it has already applied for deduction, If it is deducted, the input tax must be transferred out first.

III. Analysis on the tax-related risks of changing oil stamps into transportation tickets

(I) Tax-related risks of entities that issue refined oil invoices

In the transaction model involved in the case, regardless of whether the entity that issues refined oil invoices is a refining company or a refined oil trading company, it sells oil products to gas stations by separating invoices and goods, and then issues corresponding invoices to downstream transportation companies. This will create tax-related risks.

On the one hand, the source enterprise may be liable for evading value-added tax. When the invoicing company sold refined oil to gas stations, it hid the sales revenue through off-book operations, neither invoiced nor declared the actual sales, thus evading the value-added tax payable. According to the provisions of Article 63 of the "Tax Collection and Administration Law", the above-mentioned behavior of the tax source enterprise may be characterized as tax evasion, and the tax authorities will be required to pay tax and late payment fees, and bear a fine of not less than 50% but not more than 5 times. This liability shall also be This may further translate into criminal liability for tax evasion.

On the other hand, ticket source companies may have the risk of false issuance. Due to the lack of a real transaction basis between the ticket source enterprise and the downstream transportation enterprise, according to the "Several Issues Concerning the Application of the Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Punishing the Crime of False Issuance, Forgery and Illegal Sale of Special Value-Added Tax Invoices" issued by the Supreme People's Court According to the provisions of the Notice (Fafa [1996] No. 30), issuing special VAT invoices for others without the actual purchase and sale of goods constitutes false issuance of special VAT invoices. Accordingly, the invoices issued by the invoice source enterprise are likely to be falsely issued. At the same time, because it issues invoices to entities with which it has no trading relationship, it has the subjective intention to allow downstream transportation companies to make false payments. If the downstream companies are investigated, the invoice source company will also be easily implicated in the risk of false issuance. If the risk of false issuance breaks out first in the source enterprise, its competent tax authority may issue a "Assistant Investigation Letter" and "Confirmed False Issuance Notice" to the competent tax authorities of the downstream transportation enterprises, thereby transmitting the risk of false issuance to the purchase and sale chain. downstream entities.

(II) Tax-related risks of transportation companies

In the transaction model involved in the case, due to insufficient input and cost, the transportation company had to take desperate measures to obtain refined oil invoices from upstream invoice source companies, and used the value-added tax deduction policy of Announcement No. 30 to alleviate the tax burden caused by the inability to legally obtain input invoices. question. However, in this process, the transportation company is not the entity that actually picks up the goods, and there is no delivery of goods between it and the actual carrier. On the subjective side, it is fully aware of the fact that it was falsely opened and cannot obtain it in good faith, which also leads to its false delivery. Opening is extremely risky. According to the "Announcement of the State Administration of Taxation on the Issue of Taxpayer's Falsely Issuing Special Value-Added Tax Invoices" (State Administration of Taxation Announcement No. 33 of 2012), "The taxpayers who obtain falsely issued special VAT invoices shall not use them as VAT invoices." Legal and valid tax deduction vouchers can be used to deduct the input tax amount." Accordingly, transportation companies falsely issuing refined oil invoices and falsely increasing inputs cannot achieve the original intention of reducing tax burdens, but will instead bring administrative and criminal risks to themselves. According to the provisions of Article 35 of the "Invoice Management Measures", if a taxpayer makes false invoices, the tax authorities will not only confiscate their illegal gains, but also impose penalties of more than 50,000 yuan and 500,000 yuan if the amount of false invoices exceeds 10,000 yuan. If the following fines constitute a crime, you will also be held criminally responsible according to law.

In fact, even if the transportation company obtains the invoice from the invoice source company and has a real transaction basis for purchasing refined oil from other third-party entities, it is still illegal to issue invoices in terms of administrative liability, and it is difficult to avoid administrative liability. However, there is an essential difference between truthful issuance of VAT based on real transactions and false issuance. If the perpetrator subjectively has no intention to defraud tax deductions and objectively does not cause any loss of national value-added tax, it is inappropriate to resort to false issuance of VAT. The crime of special invoice shall be punished. However, since the truthful issuance of special VAT invoices also violates the management order of special VAT invoices, the judicial authorities may hold the transportation company criminally responsible for the crime of illegally purchasing special VAT invoices.

(III) Tax-related risks of shipping companies

In the transaction model involved in the case, the shipping company is the downstream invoicing company that the transportation company issues transportation invoices. It is at the last link of the invoicing chain. On the one hand, the tax-related risks it bears come from its own business problems. For example, in this case, the shipper obtained Transportation invoices, but there is no fund exchange with the transportation company, or there is a return of funds, and the registered business locations of the shipping company and the transportation company are thousands of miles away, which is extremely disproportionate to the normal business model. The transportation company and the shipping company There are doubts as to whether the consignment business actually occurs between enterprises, and there is a potential risk of false disclosure. Moreover, since special VAT invoices have the characteristics of being deducted in various ways, the risk of false issuance by shipping companies also comes from the risk transmission of upstream companies. According to the provisions of Article 2 of the "Announcement on the Management of Abnormal VAT Deduction Vouchers and Other Relevant Matters" (State Administration of Taxation Announcement No. 38 of 2019), if the cumulative input tax of the transportation enterprise's abnormal vouchers for the current period accounts for all the input VAT special invoices for the same period, If the tax amount is more than 70% (inclusive), or the cumulative input tax amount of abnormal vouchers exceeds 50,000 yuan, the corresponding invoices issued will be included in the scope of abnormal vouchers. At that time, if the shipping company cannot put forward favorable claims and basis for the disputed invoices, it will also face the risk that the input cannot be deducted.

IV. Space for defense against tax-related risks when oil stamps are converted into transportation tickets

(I) The tax-related risk defense space of the ticket source enterprise

First, the ticket source company can claim that there is a purchase and sale relationship between the transportation company and the gas station, that is, after the transportation company purchases excessive amounts of oil products from the ticket source company, it entrusts the ticket source company to sell to gas stations that do not require input invoices. The ticket source company The company can provide evidence such as the entrustment contract with the transportation company and the fuel delivery bill from the gas station to argue that although the transaction model involved in the case shows "separation of tickets and goods", there is a real oil product and entrustment relationship, and the transportation company and refueling cannot be simply denied. Purchase and sale relationships between sites. There is no intention on the part of the invoicing company to invoice or evade taxes. The tax evasion is actually caused by the transportation company not declaring unbilled income from selling refined oil to gas stations.

Second, the transportation company established a purchase and sales relationship with the gas station and entrusted the ticket source company to sell the oil on its behalf. Since the transportation company lacked the storage conditions for the oil, it adopted the method of "instructed delivery" and the ticket source company directly delivered it to the gas station. Comply with the trading habits of bulk commodity trading.

(II) Tax-related risk defense space for transportation companies

First, the transportation company can provide evidence such as the transportation service contract with the shipping company, the dispatch order, and the statement issued by the actual carrier that can support the actual occurrence of the transportation business, thereby claiming that a real transportation business occurred and that it obtained false information. The invoice was issued because the actual carrier did not issue an invoice to it. In order to solve the tax problem, a refined oil invoice was issued from the source company to offset the input. Based on the actual transportation services provided by the transportation company, it can be proved that it does not have the intention to defraud the state tax by deducting input from false invoices. Objectively speaking, the transportation company has obtained the right to deduct the input tax based on real transactions, and has not caused any harm to the state. Danger or Consequences of Loss of Taxes.

Secondly, the transaction model involved in the case caused the country's tax losses mainly because the transportation company sold oil products to gas stations through off-book operations, and it should be held accountable for tax evasion. Since the transportation company has not obtained a "Hazardous Chemical Business License", if it engages in the purchase and sale of refined oil, it may also be held criminally responsible for the crime of illegal business.

Thirdly, if there is indeed no real transportation business between the transportation enterprise and the shipper, according to Article 1 of the "Interim Regulations on Value-Added Tax", units and individuals selling services within the territory of the People's Republic of China are taxpayers of value-added tax and shall Pay value-added tax in accordance with these regulations. On the contrary, if the transportation enterprise does not make any sales, it does not have any VAT liability according to law. Even if the taxpayer issues an invoice, failure to pay the tax will not cause a loss of state tax.

(III) Space for defense against tax-related risks for shipping companies

The shipping company can provide proof of genuine transportation service transactions with the upstream transportation company, raise objections to the tax authorities in accordance with the law on invoices that are characterized as abnormal vouchers, and claim the right to deductions in accordance with the law. This requires them to properly retain and keep transaction-related contracts, invoices and other vouchers in daily business activities to ensure that the authenticity of the business is supported by sufficient evidence.