Tax-related risks and compliance management in the logistics industry were discussed

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Logistics enterprises: pay attention to the prevention and control of four types of tax-related risks

According to data from the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, the total amount of social logistics in the country will be 352.4 trillion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 5.2% at comparable prices. The total revenue of the logistics industry was 13.2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.9%, and the scale of logistics revenue continued to expand. The logistics industry is developing steadily and improving, and the quality and efficiency are improving, but there are also some tax-related issues worth paying attention to. According to the "Tax Compliance Report on the Logistics and Transportation Industry (2024)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") released by Beijing Huashui Law Firm, from the information on logistics and transportation false opening cases released by the State Administration of Taxation and local tax authorities since 2023, the tax risks of the logistics and transportation industry mainly include: four typical tax-related risks, such as oil stamps being changed into transport tickets, obtaining false opening invoices, false invoices issued by online freight platforms, and failure to recognize sales revenue in accordance with regulations.

Common risk point 1: Fuel ticket becomes transportation ticket

After joint investigation by the tax police, a gang set up 4 transportation companies, and in the absence of real transactions, let others falsely issue special VAT invoices for the liquefied gas and tire industries for themselves, and at the same time falsely issued special VAT invoices for others in the transportation industry, with a total of 670 million yuan in the whole chain of invoice prices and taxes.

According to the analysis of the report, the false issuance behavior of "oil ticket to transportation ticket" of transportation enterprises is usually closely related to the phenomenon of "oil ticket separation". Because there are many individual consumers in the downstream of petrochemical enterprises, and some consumers do not take the initiative to ask for invoices, petrochemical enterprises have "surplus tickets" and open them to transportation enterprises. After paying the invoicing fee, the transportation enterprise obtains special VAT invoices such as "refined oil" and "liquefied gas", and then issues transportation invoices to the downstream. In some cases, transportation companies will obtain "non-refined oil invoices" with product names such as "raw oil" and "heavy oil", and non-refined oil cannot be directly used in transportation vehicles. However, the transportation company neither sells non-refined oil products to the outside world, nor entrusts the processing of related oil products, and directly issues transportation invoices to the downstream, which has a high risk of false issuance.

Liu Tianyong, director of Beijing Huashui Law Firm, analyzed that one of the reasons for the high incidence of false opening behavior of transportation enterprises is that it is difficult for transportation enterprises to obtain special VAT invoices and insufficient input deductions. In fact, eligible refined oil invoices are deductible. The announcement of the State Administration of Taxation on value-added tax issues such as the filing of tax exemption for cross-border taxable activities (Announcement No. 30 of 2017 of the State Administration of Taxation, hereinafter referred to as Announcement No. 30) clarifies that if the refined oil products and the road, bridge and gate tolls paid by taxpayers themselves and handed over to the actual carriers are actually used to complete transportation services, and the VAT deduction vouchers obtained meet the current regulations, the input VAT shall be allowed to be deducted from the output VAT.

Qiu Lu, head of the goods and services tax section of the Neijiang Municipal Taxation Bureau of the State Administration of Taxation, said that the introduction of Announcement No. 30 has filled the gap in the input deduction policy such as fuel fees and tolls actually used by non-transport carriers, but also gives some criminals an opportunity. In this regard, non-means of transport carriers should strictly abide by the bottom line of the law, take the main body of transportation business operation and the main body of actual delivery of oil products as the key points of internal control, strengthen the standardized operation of business, capital, physical and other links, and establish a multi-point linkage internal control management mechanism to effectively prevent the risk of false opening.

Common risk point 2: Obtaining false invoices for opening line fees

According to the investigation of the inspection bureau, a certain gang is suspected of letting "black intermediaries" falsely issue 660,000 electronic invoices for ETC tolls for themselves without actual transportation business, with a total amount of 516 million yuan. At present, the case is under in-depth investigation.

The report pointed out that behind the false issuance of ETC toll invoices, there is a hidden chain of interests involving transportation companies, "black intermediaries", individual drivers and other subjects. In daily operations, transportation enterprises face the problems of VAT input deduction and insufficient deduction of recorded costs. Criminals seized this demand, collected a large number of driver information, falsely issued electronic invoices for ETC tolls, provided false deduction vouchers for transportation companies, and assisted enterprises in evading corporate income tax, value-added tax, additional taxes, etc. The "black intermediary" is responsible for contacting the transport company and collecting the invoicing tax points from it. At the same time, some individual drivers sell their ETC toll e-invoices or personal information to criminals in order to obtain additional income, helping them to carry out false billing activities.

Xu Zhixiong, head of the goods and services tax section of the Baiyun District Taxation Bureau of Guangzhou City, suggested that transportation enterprises should improve the internal voucher management system. On the one hand, select reliable transaction entities, strengthen the training and guidance of individual drivers, and accurately issue special VAT invoices; On the other hand, establish and improve the risk identification system for abnormal invoicing behaviors of enterprises, focusing on whether there are phenomena such as repeated red flushing of invoices in ETC accounts, frequent binding and unbinding of vehicles under the name of invoicing accounts, and mismatch between the license plate number of toll invoices and the license plate number of transportation invoices issued by enterprises. In addition, enterprises must also take the authenticity of business as the principle and retain complete transaction information for future reference.

Common risk point 3: false invoicing by the online freight platform

Company A is an online freight platform enterprise and was investigated and punished for allegedly issuing false VAT invoices. According to the first-instance judgment, the company has issued a total of 18,323 special VAT invoices to more than 2,700 enterprises, amounting to 9.198 billion yuan, and received a total of 335 million yuan in financial returns from local government departments. A total of 18 defendants, including the actual controller, technical salesman, finance, and agents, were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 3 to 15 years for the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices, and were fined a total of more than 220 yuan.

It is understood that Company A uses the self-developed network freight vehicle and cargo matching system to increase the function of supplementing the waybill, recruiting salesmen and development agents to promote special VAT invoices to logistics, construction engineering and other companies, and then the real business information or forged freight information of the recipient enterprise has entrusted the social vehicle transportation by itself, and fabricates it as a network freight business by supplementing the waybill and signing the contract. Finally, the platform will transfer the received freight to the account designated by the recipient to complete the return of funds. In this way, the invoiced enterprise obtains the special VAT invoice to deduct the input tax, and Company A collects the invoicing fee and obtains the government financial refund.

The online freight platform issues special VAT invoices in its own name, but also faces problems such as insufficient VAT input deduction and lack of enterprise income tax cost deduction vouchers. In order to encourage the development of the logistics and transportation industry, some local governments have issued relevant policies for enterprise income tax and value-added tax refunds. For example, 50% of the value-added tax retained by the local government and 90% of the 40% enterprise income tax will be returned to the enterprise in the form of financial incentives and subsidies. On the basis of no real transactions, Company A issued false invoices to the outside world, resulting in the loss of national tax revenue and seriously damaging the order of national tax collection and management.

Jiang Zheng, a partner at Beijing Huashui Law Firm, analyzed that as an emerging model relying on Internet technology, the online freight platform has imperfect business processes and high tax risks. For example, the waybills retained by the online freight platform are not compliant, or even have no track to check, and it is easy to have the risk of "back-up" invoices for the completed business. Due to the lack of payment technology, some enterprises fail to settle the payment in real time, resulting in the risk of capital return. In this regard, Jiang Zhenghe suggested that online freight platform companies should strictly review the information provided by shippers and carriers. If the enterprise has the situation of deposit return, advance payment of freight, etc., in order to avoid the risk of capital return, it should keep the relevant transaction materials so that they can be used as the basis for explaining their reasonableness in the future. Qualified online freight platforms should establish and improve corporate tax compliance management departments, or hire professional tax professionals to regularly check the tax-related risks of enterprises.

Common risk point 4: Failure to recognize sales revenue in accordance with regulations

During the transportation business, the logistics company B hired an external vehicle to carry the transportation due to the lack of transportation capacity. In order to reduce operating costs, Company B purchased gasoline and diesel and obtained invoices, and the relevant costs have been disbursed. Company B handed over the above-mentioned gasoline and diesel to the outsourced fleet to offset part of the freight. The tax authorities believed that Company B's purchase of gasoline and diesel fuel to the outsourced fleet to offset the freight and the failure to accrue output tax constituted tax evasion, and required the company to pay back taxes and late fees.

According to the analysis of the report, the fuel card offset freight is common in the logistics industry. Transportation companies can buy fuel cards in large quantities at discounted prices, and replace the freight that should be paid to individual drivers with fuel cards, which can reduce cash flow expenditure and reduce operating costs. At the same time, transportation enterprises can also obtain special VAT invoices for refined oil products for VAT input deduction and pre-tax deduction of enterprise income tax.

"The fuel card credit for shipping costs may seem reasonable, but the tax treatment is very complicated." According to Liu Tianyong's analysis, according to Announcement No. 30, when a taxpayer signs a transportation service contract with the shipper as a carrier, collects freight and bears the carrier's responsibility, and then entrusts the actual carrier to complete all or part of the transportation services, the input tax of the refined oil used by the actual carrier to complete the entrusted transportation service is allowed to be deducted from the output tax. However, if the transport enterprise does not provide the actual carrier with a fuel card according to the actual consumption of the transportation business, but provides an additional fuel card to offset part of the freight charge, the part of the freight offset does not fall under the circumstances stipulated in Announcement 30. In practice, the transportation enterprise may offset the transportation cost with the fuel card purchased from outside, which may lead to the risk of tax evasion.

Dong Ying, head of the tax administration unit of the Juye County Taxation Bureau, suggested that transportation enterprises should adhere to the "substantive principle" in tax treatment, and if there is a fuel card to offset the freight, the sales revenue should be recognized in a timely manner according to the regulations. Enterprises should strengthen the real-time monitoring and dynamic management of transportation and transaction processes to avoid problems such as blank slip credits, non-compliance with invoice supply, private account collection, and non-compliance with relevant information uploads. At the same time, if the upstream enterprise is characterized as falsely opened, the invoice recipient enterprise should take the initiative to contact the tax department and provide relevant materials such as the contract signed with the counterparty, bank flow records, and cargo bills to fully prove the authenticity of the transaction, so as to strive to be recognized as obtaining the invoice in good faith and reduce the impact on the operation of the enterprise.

Source: Hua Tax