Chinanews, Beijing, Oct. 8 - A unified corporate tax scheme for both domestic and foreign enterprises in China was recently approved by the State Council. The scheme is expected to be submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC)for approval shortly. This shows that related central departments have generally reached a consensus on the unified tax issue. If everything goes well, the scheme will be submitted to the next year’s NPC and CPPCC National Committee for voting.
In legal procedure, the unified corporate tax scheme has now concluded its first step by winning the approval of the State Council. It will be submitted first to the NPC Standing Committee, and then to the National People’s Congress, for approval, before it takes effect.
It is said that the unified corporate tax scheme has been discussed many times and various related issues, such as tax payers, tax rate, preferential policies, and tax evasion countermeasures, have all been thoroughly debated. At present, an overwhelming majority of the participants in the discussions opt to set the tax ratio at 24-27% and allow foreign enterprises a transitional period of 3-5 years to adapt to the new scheme. They also prefer to shift tax preferential treatment mainly to industrial sector.
Experts say that when the unified tax scheme takes effect, the total amount of the state tax revenue won’t change much and it won’t scare away those foreign enterpriese in China, either.