Many tourists can enjoy "duty-free" discounts when shopping abroad, but the Japanese government has found that some tourists with ulterior motives buy duty-free goods in large quantities, but then collude with local operators and resell them to obtain the price difference.
It has been learned that in order to prevent foreign tourists from exploiting the loopholes of duty-free exemption and maliciously evading taxes and reselling duty-free goods in China to make huge profits before they leave the country, the Japanese Government is considering revising the duty-free system in order to crack down on this chaotic phenomenon of abusing the duty-free system for illegal resale in China.
According to a report by Japanese media "Kyodo News" on the 23rd, the Japanese government intends to adjust the tax refund measures for foreign tourists in the tax reform of the 2025 fiscal year. It is proposed to implement a system for foreign tourists to "pay the full amount first and then get a tax refund", and when passengers leave the airport before departure, they can get tax refunds in cash after confirming that they are correct, and in order to avoid the airport chaos caused by the long queue of passengers for tax refunds at the airport, it is also proposed to add the option of tax refund by credit card. At the moment, the relevant details are being discussed.
According to sources, it is currently planned to scan the passports of departing passengers at the airport, so that customs can check the consumption records of passengers, and if it is confirmed that passengers are carrying tax-refundable goods out of the country, duty-free shops will be notified to handle tax refunds for passengers.
According to Japan's current tax-free mechanism, foreign tourists can be tax-free if the amount of a single purchase exceeds 5,000 yen (about 248 RMB), and the duty-free goods will be packaged in sealed bags and cannot be opened before departure. If the customs officer at the airport finds that the tourist has not left the country with duty-free goods, the passenger will be required to pay the additional tax.
The Japanese government's plan to adjust the tax refund mechanism is mainly due to the fact that in recent years, there have been a number of cases of exploiting loopholes and reselling duty-free goods in China to earn high price differences.
For example, in November 2022, seven Chinese men and women fled Japan after being punished by the Osaka National Tax Bureau for allegedly evading 760 million yen in consumption tax. After seven people came to Japan on tourist visas, they received instructions from the Chinese domestic line to buy brand-name watches, brand-name bags, and cosmetics in Osaka, totaling 7.7 billion yen. After applying for tax exemption, they will be resold in Japan at a price lower than the market price. When investigated, the seven people explained that the goods were mailed to China as gifts, and all consumption records had been destroyed. After receiving a penalty of 760 million yuan from the tax bureau, all seven people fled Japan.
In 2023, Japanese media reported: There is even a Taiwanese couple who bought duty-free goods (high-end watches) worth 470 million yen (about 22 million RMB) in Japan, but did not carry the goods with them when they left the country, saying that they had sent the goods back to Taiwan in advance, and asked them to pay taxes, claiming that they had no money, ignored them, and left the country directly, which made the Japanese government helpless.
It can be said that the news of exploiting the tax exemption loophole has emerged in an endless stream for several years, and it was originally a welfare system for foreign tourists, but it was taken advantage of by purchasing agents with ulterior motives to seek huge profits, and it is time to rectify it.