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China still has room for tax cuts after VAT reforms slash tax burden by 1.7 trillion RMB

By Sun Wenyu (People's Daily Online)    17:16, December 20, 2017

China has cut 1.7 trillion RMB ($258 billion) of taxes after it replaced business tax with a value-added tax (VAT) in May 2016, Chinese newspaper Securities Daily reported Wednesday.

The tax reform has generally met expectations, noted Hu Genrong, a senior tax consultant with the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) during an interview with Securities Daily. According to him, the reform has not only lowered the burden on taxpayers, but also promoted the mass entrepreneurship and innovation strategy.

But as the biggest tax category of China that has broad and profound influence on the country’s modern economic pattern, the VAT system still needs to be further improved.

China is about to establish a provisional regulation on VAT that is applicable to all taxpayers as a basis for the VAT legislation, Hu noted.

The expert believes that China needs to further accelerate its fiscal and tax reform in the next year, and thinks that the country still has a lot of room for tax reduction.

It was learnt that four tax brackets had been adopted at the initial phase of the VAT reform, and one was canceled this July.

Though multiple tax brackets play a positive role at certain stages of economic and social development, the long-term co-existence of these brackets will increase both the cost of tax compliance and administrative costs, Hu said.

Huang Zhilong, macro-economy research chief at the Suning Institute of Finance, told Securities Daily that China needs to further cut taxes with the approaching new round of global tax reductions. In addition, unreasonable administrative fees which place economic burden on enterprises will also be a focus.

Statistics showed that corporate income tax accounted for 27.2% of China’s tax revenue in the first three quarters of 2017. “If corporate income tax could be reduced by a third, enterprises’ profits would go up by nearly 1 trillion RMB,” noted Liu Zhe, director of Wanb Institute’s New Supply Economics Research Center.

He believes that the rise in the return on investment will improve investment willingness, thus releasing supply potential and creating effective demands.

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