The use of the border market to smuggle and fraudulently obtain export tax refunds of 17.7 million dollars! How can border exporters enhance compliance?
Border People's Mutual Market Trade refers to the exchange of commodities in the border areas, at open points or designated bazaars approved by the government, where border people can exchange commodities within the scope of not exceeding the specified amount or quantity. In order to promote the economic development of border trade ports, China has formulated a policy of tax exemption for border people's mutual trade, and exempted the commodities that meet a certain amount and quantity from taxes and fees in the importing process. In recent years, some lawless elements have set their eyes on the tax exemption policy of Border Mutual Trade, and have been repeatedly committing crimes through the circular export means of export tax rebate - smuggling and importing - export tax rebate again, forming a closed loop of false export and import, and cheating export tax rebate, which has resulted in the loss of national tax money. The loss of national tax. In view of this, this paper will start from the practical case of a company fraudulently obtaining export tax rebate through the circular export of the tax exemption policy of the Border Mutual Market, comb through the tax exemption policy of the Border Mutual Market in detail, and combine with the recent strong regulatory trend of the state's strict investigation of the use of the "circular export" and other means of fraudulently obtaining export tax rebate, and provide suggestions on the tax compliance for the export enterprises.
Ⅰ. Case Analysis: A Company in Liuzhou Used the Border Mutual Market Tax Exemption Policy to Fraudulently Issue Invoices and Obtain Export Tax Refunds
(Ⅰ) Basic Case
According to the disclosed tax treatment decision, an agricultural development company was investigated by the public security for suspected tax fraud. The local inspection bureau, based on the public security interrogation transcripts, determined that the company's illegal facts were: firstly, Hong, the head of the company, utilized a number of tea cooperatives under his control to fictionalize the tea green business (i.e., the acquisition of tea leaves) with 14 companies, including the company, and issued false value-added tax (VAT) invoices to the 14 companies.
At the same time, Hongmou and Vietnamese companies collude with each other, through fictitious export business, props cycle and other illegal means to achieve the purpose of fraudulent export tax rebates, the specific operation is: first by the Vietnamese company will be false tea sales contract sent to Hongmou, Hongmou cover the company and the Vietnamese company's official seal, and then photographed and sent back to Vietnam, the company will be ready props for tea and customs clearance materials for customs clearance, customs clearance through the props for tea by Sinotrans The company sent to Vietnam, props tea to Vietnam, the Vietnamese boss to help Hong Mou use the border market, the props tea all the way back to a domestic tea factory, "props cycle" of the operation of the false export of tea, fraudulent export tax rebates. The Taxation Inspection Bureau recovered the 17.7 million export tax fraudulently collected by the company according to the law.
(Ⅱ) Case Analysis: Using Border Mutual Market to Fraudulently Pay Taxes, Combined with the Risks of False Opening, Tax Fraud and Smuggling
This case is a typical criminal gang, which not only fictionalized the business of acquiring agricultural products, but also fictionalized the business of exporting, production and foreign exchange earnings. For example, in order to cover up the illegal facts, the person in charge of the company led the inspectors to the place where the actual production and operation had not been inspected, creating the illusion of normal production of tea, to muddle through. At the same time, the lawless elements will be imported in the general trade mode of goods imported into the border trade mode of implementation of smuggling imports, or false declaration of the name of the smuggling, concealment of the way of smuggling, which evades the imported goods need to pay the tax.
The behavior of such crimes is extremely broadly implicated, on the one hand, in the input link through false invoices for the purchase of agricultural products and other means of false invoicing; on the other hand, the use of border trade and mutual market tax exemption policy smuggling. In practice, there are also individual courts to smuggling of ordinary goods and fraudulent export tax rebate crime of several crimes.
This case is Hong through the territory of tea exported outside the country, prepare the materials required for export tax rebate, apply for tax rebate to the tax authorities, and then through the Sino-Vietnamese border border trade points, the border people carry the goods into the country, so as to carry out a cycle of fraudulent tax. The purpose of the series of fictitious business is to cheat export tax rebates, smuggling goods, issuing false invoices and other illegal acts are the means, the above acts are guilt by association and should be punished by choosing a felony, so this case should be punished by the sentence for cheating export tax rebates. Of course, only on the fraudulent export tax rebate a crime, the highest can also be sentenced to life imprisonment, the criminal responsibility is extremely heavy.
(Ⅲ) Summary: Export enterprises should take warning and pay attention to tax compliance
The use of agricultural products for the cycle of export props is a common technique of criminals, the reason is that the acquisition of agricultural invoices have the characteristics of self-filling and self-counterbalancing, false invoicing is relatively easy; at the same time, tea and other agricultural products compared to other products, the tax rebate rate is higher, and it is easier to carry out the customs clearance. Export enterprises should pay attention to the verification of the acquisition of agricultural invoices, to ensure that the acquisition of agricultural invoices comply with the acquisition of agricultural products, the acquisition of agricultural products, to field verification of the acquisition of the production of agricultural products by the ability of the acquirer, can be taken to ask the local residents to verify the authenticity of its acquirer, so as to avoid being involved in the chain of tax fraud, tax authorities suspended tax refunds, and even also characterized as fraudulent export tax rebates, affecting the normal operation and development of the enterprise.
Ⅱ. Tax Risks of Border Mutual Market and Circular Export under the New Trade Model
As mentioned earlier, the tax exemption policy of the border market is one of the conditions for the unscrupulous elements to utilize the recycling export of agricultural products to cheat the export tax rebate, and next, the author will sort out the policy of the border market in detail.
(Ⅰ) Border Mutual Market Related Policies
Among them, the Administrative Measures for Border Mutual Market Trade is formulated and published by the General Administration of Customs, and in the Trade Mode Code List issued by the General Administration of Customs, the Border Mutual Market Trade belongs to the last "other", with the code of 9900; therefore, Border Mutual Market belongs to the mode of supervision of the Customs and, therefore, it constitutes the crime of smuggling common goods even if it is not characterized as cheating export tax rebate. The crime of smuggling common goods
(Ⅱ) Using the tax-free policy of Border Mutual Market to circulate exports has become a new type of criminal means in recent years
Circular export is the actor will prop goods really exported to foreign countries, and then imported to the territory to export again, so as to achieve the cycle of multiple fraudulent export tax rebates tax fraud, compared with the low value of high reporting and other means of a strong covert, in the process of customs clearance, if the customs only test the transport documents, customs declarations and the actual goods whether the same, it is very difficult to be detected during the process of the problem, because the exported goods Is real, there is no anomaly in the bill of lading. Subsequently, the lawless elements then let the residents of the border area or the other country's border people to carry props goods into the border trade zone, to complete the same cycle of goods. In addition to the case cited above, I also retrieved the State Administration of Taxation Suizhou City Tax Bureau announced the tax fraud case, a tea company is also to take the "cycle of export" + "border people market" composite means to fraudulently obtain export tax rebates, and was transferred to the public security. In addition, the referee documents network also announced a use of the border market tax exemption policy to cheat export tax rebates. The defendant in this case first exported seafood to overseas companies after shipping to Vietnam, the general goods were falsely declared as Border Mutual Trade goods shipped to the territory, and was sentenced and punished by the court for the crime of obtaining fraudulent export tax rebates.
(Ⅲ) Under the trend of strong supervision, the use of circular export means to cheat export tax rebate was strictly investigated
In recent years, state regulators have held numerous meetings, indicating that they will crack down on tax-related crimes, with a focus on the crime of fraudulent export tax refunds. 2018 saw the State Administration of Taxation (SAT) and four other ministries and commissions jointly deploying a special action to combat tax cheating and fraudulent issuance; and 2019 saw the proposal of continuing to crack down on "fake enterprises" and "fake exports", and cracking down on fraudulent issuance of tax refunds. In 2019, it is proposed to continue to crack down on "fake enterprises" and "fake exports", and to continue to mobilize and deploy the fight against tax fraud; in 2020, it is pointed out that the special action to crack down on tax fraud will be extended to the end of June 2021; in 2021, the six departments' joint efforts to crack down on tax fraud will become a regular feature; in 2022, it is again made clear that a high-pressure situation will be maintained for the fight against tax fraud and strict investigations.
In July 3 this year, held in the country's seven departments to jointly combat tax-related crimes to promote the work of the Supreme Prosecutor's Procuratorate, Zhang Zhijie, a full-time member of the Procuratorate Committee, said the procuratorial organs will continue to focus on cracking down on the use of recycling exports and other ways of fraudulent export tax refunds, and other serious tax-related crimes. It can be seen that the circular export fraudulent export tax refunds is the focus of the future crackdown by the procuratorial organs.
Ⅲ. Strategies for export enterprises to deal with fraudulent export tax rebates
(Ⅰ) All the staff of export enterprises improve tax compliance awareness and strengthen the learning of tax policies.
The complexity of the export business process and more tax policy specifications have made it difficult for some enterprise personnel to form a system for export tax rebate, and they even lack correct understanding of illegal and irregular operations such as circular export. Therefore, the whole staff of the enterprise maintains the continuous learning of the export tax norms and policies, so as to avoid some irregularities violating the tax law norms being administratively punished by the tax authorities or even being recognized as a crime. To this end, it is recommended that export enterprises regularly carry out training on business and tax policies, not only limited to financial personnel, but also all the staff of the enterprise should conduct in-depth study.
(Ⅱ) Establish tax-related risk prevention and control system, identify and respond to tax-related risk points
Export enterprises should establish the awareness of risk prevention and control, and set up a tax-related risk prevention and control system in line with the export enterprises' own situation. First of all, enterprises should comprehensively sort out the tax laws and norms involved according to their existing business and incorporate them into their tax compliance library; secondly, in dealing with the business process, they should set up specialists in each link of procurement, domestic sales and export sales to assess the tax-related risks of the counterparties before the business is carried out, and in the course of carrying out the process, they should check the tax-related risks of the business process, and enhance the management of goods, especially the VAT invoices, to identify and control tax-related risks, especially the VAT invoices. In the process of carrying out the business, the tax-related risks are examined in the business process, the management of goods is strengthened, especially the management of VAT invoices, and timely measures are taken to cope with the anomalies once they appear.
(Ⅲ) Strengthen communication with tax authorities and regularly hire tax professionals to conduct tax health check for enterprises
Export enterprises should strengthen communication with tax authorities and other relevant regulatory agencies, and before the business is carried out, consult with the tax bureau in a timely manner on the tax treatment of doubtful export business, and strive to obtain the approval of the tax authorities to carry out. At the same time, tax professionals are regularly hired to carry out a full range of inspections for the enterprise's tax management, and to check the tax-related administrative risk points or criminal liability risk points in the export enterprise. In addition, when a tax dispute arises between an export enterprise and a tax authority, due to the complicated tax laws and regulations related to export business, the business personnel of the enterprise may be unfamiliar with the tax policy, relief channels, etc. At this time, tax professionals can be asked to communicate with the tax authority on behalf of the enterprise to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the enterprise.