Nov. 23 (NBD) -- Changes to the structure of China's tax system and the technology used by both taxpayers and the SAT have helped to reduce the time to comply to 207 hours in 2016, a nearly 20 percent decrease from a year ago, said the "Paying Taxes 2018" report, released jointly by the World Bank Group and PwC.

Now in its 12th edition, Paying Taxes report uses a medium sized domestic case study company to measure and assess the ease of paying taxes across 190 economies.

The report this year finds that information technology (IT) has changed the way businesses collect, record and transmit data and the way they pay their taxes.

According to the report, the time that taxpayers spend on tax compliance in China has been cut to 207 hours, much lower than the world's average 240 hours.

This improvement showcases the achievements that Chinese tax authorities have made through tax enforcement and reform over the past several years.

The report acknowledges that serving taxpayers is not just an important KPI for tax authorities across China, it is also becoming entrenched in the culture of the Chinese State Administration of Taxation (SAT).

Besides, tens of thousands of Taxpayer Services Department officials at all levels of tax bureaus have streamlined the organization of those bureaus, standardized various tax payment procedures and systems, upgraded tax service hotlines, and embraced young taxpayers’ favorite online and mobile apps to provide innovative tax services and promote timely awareness of tax rules, said the report.

NBD also noticed that China ranked 78th around the globe in terms of facilitation regulation affecting business activities, according to the "Doing Business 2018" report released last month by the World Bank Group.

The "Paying Taxes 2018" report appraised China's "Internet + Taxation" initiative, saying that the initiative helps to unlock the potential of big data to benefit taxpayers, such as sharing more data among government bodies to avoid repetitive data collection, online training to facilitate the understanding of systems and tax rules, and e-invoices to reduce the time and cost for handling paper invoices.

China's tax environment has been continuously improving, making it much easier for companies to fulfill their compliance obligations.

Zeng Wei of Hubei-based Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile Company Ltd. told NBD that a tax can be paid and filed online, just as easy as online banking. To settle individual income tax for 15000 employees of the company used to cost one person one day, but now it takes only 30 minutes, Zeng added.

The IT-based taxation process benefits not only enterprises and individuals, but also the tax authorities. Xie Wen, director of Guangzhou Municipal Office, SAT, noted that the office is managing over 1 million tax accounts, 80 percent of which are done via internet. Without an IT-based system, pressure of handling so many tax accounts would go beyond imagination, Xie added.

In addition to electronic taxation, system integration also contributes to the reduction of time of paying tax. Chongqing Municipal Office, SAT, for example, set up a system to integrate 10 tables into 1 for VAT (Value Added Tax) compliance.

NBD noticed that the tax system electronization has become the shared goal and development trend for world's major economies. It is estimated that 92 economies has implemented online transaction of tax declaration and paying tax in an all-round way as of 2016. 


Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn

Editor: Gao Han