The wheels of 2021 are rolling by, the tax authorities are still rectifying entertainment, equity investment and more quiet areas, and the era of tax evasion by high-income groups through the sharp weapon of "approved collection" is gone.
"Actors and celebrities, including live broadcast anchors, actually exploited the loopholes in the national tax before, and should not be small taxpayers themselves, nor should they be approved for collection, so it is not that the state has changed its policies, but is correcting the mistakes of the past." On January 11, Wang Pengju, vice president and secretary general of the China Association of Manufacturers and a member of the Steering Committee of the Youth Work Committee, said at a salon on film and television finance and taxation management.
This "corrective" measure runs through the whole year of 2021 and does not stop, on December 21, 2021, the National Audit Office issued the "Report of the State Council on the Rectification of Problems Found in the Implementation of the Central Budget and Other Fiscal Revenue and Expenditure Audits in 2020" and its annexes show that in 2021, the State Administration of Taxation filed a case to investigate the tax evasion problems in the fields of automobile sales, agricultural product procurement, and the payment of individual taxes for high-income groups, and recovered 756 million yuan in taxes.
At the same time, with regard to the problem of high-income personnel using the approved collection method to evade taxes, the State Administration of Taxation has selected 15 provinces with more approved collections to carry out pilot projects in two batches, adjusting sole proprietorships and partnership enterprises that meet certain circumstances to audit and collect, adjusting and regulating nearly 80,000 enterprises, which will be pushed to the whole country in due course.
Approved expropriation that has been abused
"The abuse of approved expropriation is the main problem for live streamers such as Via." Wang Yanghu, a senior partner at Zhonghui Shengsheng (Beijing) Tax Consultant Firm, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.
Approved collection refers to a method of collection in which the tax authority adopts a reasonable method to verify the taxpayer's tax payable in accordance with the law when the taxpayer's accounting books are not perfect, the information is incomplete and difficult to check the account, or it is difficult to accurately determine the taxpayer's tax payable due to other reasons.
Correspondingly, it is the collection of accounts, which is suitable for taxpayers whose account books, vouchers and financial accounting systems are relatively sound, and can be used to truthfully account, reflect the results of production and operation, and correctly calculate the tax payable.
It can be seen from the combing that the tax evasion model of many network anchors investigated in 2021 is mainly divided into two stages:
First, through the establishment of a number of sole proprietorship enterprises, the labor income obtained by the relevant enterprises will be converted into the operating income of the sole proprietorship enterprise, according to the Individual Income Tax Law, wage and salary income and labor remuneration income are comprehensive income, and the excess progressive tax rate of 3% to 45% is applicable, while the excess progressive tax rate of 5% to 35% is applied to the individual's business income, and there is a tax rate difference between the conversions;
Second, because sole proprietorship enterprises often have imperfect accounting books and are difficult to check their accounts, in most cases they are taxed according to the approved tax, and the approved income rate depends on the specific regulations issued by the local government, and some local governments often set the approved income rate very low in order to attract investment and develop the local economy. In this way, the actual tax burden of taxpayers can even be reduced to less than 10%.
"The first approved collection was formulated by the state based on two principles, the principle of efficiency of the tax law and the principle of fairness of the tax law." Bo Lijia, a financial management consulting expert, explained at the above salon that because some small stall vendors have no way to collect costs and incomes, and the magnitude is very small, the state gives a way to improve the efficiency of taxation, and gives a certain amount of tax requirements in a certain business location, a certain business scope, and a certain business period, and pays according to the fixed collection standards of different industries.
Bo Lijia pointed out that this form was later abused, especially among high-income people, setting up studios, avoiding taxes for the sake of tax avoidance, splitting their own income into multiple studios, and changing the nature of income.
In the past, when a taxpayer had an employment relationship with Company A, it was a comprehensive income, and after setting up a personal studio, it became business income in order to seek the lowest tax rate.
Nowadays, with the development of tax big data, data transparency has improved, and tax supervision has changed from "mainly relying on experience inspection or external reporting findings" to "relying on tax big data to accurately classify supervision", for such incidents that violate the principle of tax fairness, because there is no audit and accounting during the operation of the personal studio, the regulatory authorities will make up taxes according to labor income.
In fact, not only the film and television entertainment industry has been rectified, but also in the field of equity investment.
On December 30, 2021, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation issued the Announcement on the Collection and Administration of Individual Income Tax on Equity Investment and Operation Income (hereinafter referred to as the "Announcement"), stating that from January 1, 2022, sole proprietorships and partnerships (hereinafter referred to as sole proprietorships) that hold equity investments such as equity, stocks, and property shares of partnerships will all apply the method of accounting collection to calculate individual income tax; financial and tax departments at all levels should do a good job of service counseling. Actively guide wholly-owned partnerships to establish and improve account books, improve accounting and financial management systems, and truthfully declare and pay taxes.
In the Opinions on Further Deepening the Reform of Tax Collection and Management issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council in March 2021, it was clearly stated that risk prevention and control and supervision should be strengthened for industry regions and groups with frequent tax evasion problems. Subsequently, the Inspection Bureau of the State Administration of Taxation issued a document saying that in view of the production and processing of agricultural and sideline products, the acquisition and utilization of waste materials, the purchase and sale of bulk commodities (such as coal, steel, electrolytic copper, gold), for-profit educational institutions, medical beauty, live broadcasting platforms, intermediary agencies, and equity transfers of high-income people, the focus was on investigating and dealing with tax-related violations such as false invoices, concealment of income, false costs, malicious tax planning using "tax depressions" and related party transactions, and the use of new business models to evade taxes.
In an article, Xinghan Law Firm pointed out that there is a huge tax burden difference between the approved collection and the audit collection, which has led to some taxpayers willing to illegally fictitious business and realize the transfer of wage income and labor income to business income.
It is expected that with the adjustment of the State Administration of Taxation's collection and management thinking, the "approved collection" will gradually fade out of the historical stage, and the so-called "tax planning" that will be carried out by simply and rudely using the mode of approved collection in the future will face greater risks and challenges.
The right way to open "tax planning"
Wang Yizhi, founder and CEO of Zhongguan Technology and founding partner of Fanying, believes that this round of tax supervision aims to adjust the national tax system, so that the proportion of direct taxes is relatively balanced, and at the same time, the secondary distribution is mainly distributed at the tax level, which also tests the professionalism of high-income groups in fiscal and tax management.
How can you manage your fiscal and tax issues in compliance and do a good job of tax planning?
In the context of the comprehensive management of the tax order of the film and television industry, Wang Yizhi believes that film and television industry practitioners should first make good use of digital tools, in recent years, the rapid development of electronic government affairs, there are many financial management tools on the tax platform that can be used by themselves, in addition, practitioners should avoid registering multiple legal entities in the business scale hours, resulting in the dispersion of revenue and expenditure, in the face of local and financial institutions preferential policies, it is impossible to build valuable data for credit support.
"Investment is focused on the future of the enterprise, and bank loans are mainly based on the data of the enterprise in previous years to judge the future of the enterprise." Sun Jun, assistant to the president of the National Cultural and Creative Experimental Zone Branch of the Bank of Beijing, also introduced at the salon that in the verification of enterprise tax payment information, the Bank of Beijing and the Beijing Taxation Bureau used the enterprise tax payment information as a system condition and adopted a combination of online and offline methods for approval.
If you want to go to the personal studio for tax planning, Bo Lijia believes that the practitioners set up commercial entities such as studios, etc., and then operate their commercial entity enterprises in compliance, complete the obligations according to the contract signed with the partner according to the essence of the business, issue invoices and record the accounts, collect the expenses in the cost, and collect the net profit obtained by reasonable accounting through the audit, pay the relevant taxes according to the regulations, bear the tax obligations, and the after-tax amount is the legal and compliant income.
Xinghan Law Firm also pointed out that if the substantive business is loaded in the form of an established entity (which may be a limited company, a partnership, a sole proprietorship, etc.), the cost and expense accounting is clear, the legal form is rigorous, and there are real business materials and other supporting materials, even if the actual use of the tax incentives (including fiscal returns) policy of the place of establishment is unlikely to be identified as fictitious business and change the nature of income.
"Reasonable tax planning is based on real transaction relationships and reasonable business logic, and it is a transaction plan that can disclose complete and true information to the tax authorities and explore the rationality of tax treatment." However, a reasonable tax plan does not mean that tax risks can be completely excluded, as the tax authorities may hold different understandings and opinions from taxpayers on the same transaction facts and tax policies; however, reasonable tax planning should be able to completely exclude the determination of tax evasion.
On the issue of tax treatment after the approval of the collection is changed to audit and collection, the State Administration of Taxation has issued a notice saying, "If an enterprise can provide an invoice for the purchase of assets, the amount specified in the invoice shall be used as the basis for taxation; if it cannot provide an invoice for the purchase of assets, it may use the amount recorded in the contract (agreement), proof of payment of funds, accounting materials, etc. for the purchase of assets as the basis for tax calculation." After the assets put into use during the approved taxation period of the enterprise are replaced by audit and taxation, the depreciation and amortization period stipulated in the tax law shall be deducted after the assets are put into use, and the depreciation and amortization amount shall continue to be calculated for the remaining years and deducted before tax. ”
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