Shanghai FTZ chief liaison officers help solve tax issues

Last year, the tax staff of Johnson & Johnson (Shanghai) Medical Devices Co delayed the declaration of import value-added tax deduction of 43.92 million yuan ($6.35 million) collected by the customs.

They submitted an application for overdue deduction to the tax bureau of Shanghai Pudong New Area Bonded Area in accordance with the procedures. However, they waited for a long time but didn't receive any news, which made the company's top management anxious.

Li Ming, tax director of the company, explained the matter to the chief tax liaison officer of the tax bureau at a symposium.

Upon hearing the appeal, the chief liaison officer immediately started an investigation and tracked the approval progress.

In December last year, the company successfully deducted the first batch of import value-added tax of 37.09 million yuan. Earlier this year, the company received the application approval for the remaining tax overdue deduction of 6.83 million yuan.

Among the enterprises under the management of the tax bureau of the bonded area, there are 1,505 key taxpayers paying an annual tax of more than 5 million yuan, accounting for 92 percent of the area's total tax revenue.

With this situation, the tax bureau started with key taxpayers to solve the problem of tax collection and management.

In August 2018, it established a contact system for key taxpayers with 24 officials serving as chief liaison officers.

Each chief liaison officer is required to contact more than 60 key taxpayers to help solve "urgent and difficult problems" through visits and symposiums to make up for the deficiencies of the current work system.

As chief liaison officers conducted communication with enterprises directly, many problems have been solved.

For example, for VAT invoice problems that concern many enterprises, the tax bureau adopted the advice of its chief liaison officers. To prevent and control risks, it made a long white list of reputable enterprises and relaxed conditions for the use of VAT invoices. 

It also fast-tracked settlements to solve the problem of improper deductions of import value-added tax on behalf of customs.

Since the contact system was established, the chief liaison officers have held 71 symposiums with the participation of 1,062 enterprises. They have also visited 36 enterprises and responded to 814 urgent issues.

The chief liaison officers also contacted the administration committee of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone to help coordinate the implementation of 151 million yuan worth of financial subsidies for eight enterprises.

In addition, they also communicated with banks to help 15 enterprises obtain loans with preferential loan interest rates.