Reflections On Tax Agency Business

The definition of tax agency category, according to the Circular of the State Administration of Taxation on the pilot work of tax agency, means that tax agents are collectively referred to as tax agents acting on behalf of taxpayers and withholding agents in accordance with the provisions of laws and regulations.

According to the legal document of China's accession to the WTO, Annex 9, the specific schedule of commitments for trade in services, the tax agency should belong to the tax service industry.

According to the classification of the products of the United Nations central product classification, the tax service industry (No. 8630) includes enterprise tax planning and consulting services (number 86301), establishment and review services of enterprise tax statements (No. 86302), personal tax preparation and planning services (numbering 86303), and other tax related services (numbering 86309).

According to the original intention of setting up a tax agency system in China, the main task of tax agents is to provide assistance to taxpayers who need services, with a focus on providing advisory services to taxpayers, especially for the vast number of small and medium-sized enterprises and individual businesses.

For example, tax authorities encourage tax agents to provide agency services for self-employed accounts and declare taxes.

According to the definition of the United Nations central product classification, the tax service industry is extensive.

But our country only set up regulations on tax agents, other tax services have not been included in the norm.

In fact, other tax services mainly involve taxpayers and tax consulting agencies. They generally do not involve tax authorities. They are a civil contract relationship.

When engaging in activities that do not involve tax authorities, tax advisory agencies must abide by national laws, such as criminal law, contract law and tax law, so there is no need for special legislative norms.

Some people believe that tax agents should serve the tax authorities, whether it is conducive to lowering the cost of tax collection and increasing taxes and warehousing as a sign of healthy development of the tax agency industry.

The author believes that this view is rather one-sided and is not conducive to the perfection and development of the tax agency industry system.

1. tax collection is not only an economic legal relationship, but also an administrative legal relationship.

According to the viewpoint of administrative law, the theory of "management theory" as the management function of administrative law has long been out of date. The theory of cybernetics in western countries is not accepted by most scholars in China for the purpose of restricting and controlling the functions and powers of administrative organs.

According to this view, the taxpayer is undoubtedly in a weak position before the complicated tax law. In order to balance the rights and obligations of the tax authorities and the taxpayers as the weak, the state also sets up a tax agency system while giving the tax authorities a lot of administrative power, so that tax agents can help the taxpayers to protect the legitimate rights and interests of taxpayers.

2. governments at all levels shall set up specialized tax authorities and set up registration, collection and inspection departments within the tax authorities at or above the county level, so as to ensure that the state collects taxes according to law.

In fact, regardless of whether or not a tax agency system is established, collecting taxes and lowering the cost of tax collection is the bounden duty of the tax authorities.

The tax agency system established by the State shall not exempt the tax authorities from their obligations, nor can they be pferred to the head of the tax agency.

If the tax authorities are allowed to pass on their obligations, the tax authorities will reduce the driving force for pursuing impartiality and improving the efficiency of collection.

The legal attribute of 3. "agent" determines that tax agents can only be responsible to taxpayers, not to tax authorities.

According to the relevant provisions of the general principles of the civil law and the contract law, agents must conduct civil activities within the scope of their authorization in the name of the agent.

The purpose of the agent is to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the principal.

Therefore, tax agents should belong to the consulting industry, not the forensic industry.

This is essentially different from that of certified public accountants, who are responsible not only to the principal but also to other interested parties other than the principal.

The legal relationship between tax agents and tax authorities should be: tax agents comply with laws and regulations, and implement tax agency business in accordance with the procedures prescribed by the tax authorities, while accepting tax authorities' supervision according to law.

The basic principles of tax agents are "tax payers", "voluntariness", "consultation" and "tax agents", which constitute the key words of the tax agency industry.

Among them, I believe that the most important principles are voluntary and open.

On the principle of voluntariness.

The tax agency is mainly to provide services for taxpayers, and it is most important to satisfy taxpayers' wishes.

Therefore, let taxpayers decide whether or not to hire tax agents. The tax authorities should not coerce or disguise the principle of forcing taxpayers to accept the voluntary service of tax agency services as a basic principle of the tax agency industry.

The principle of openness.

In order to achieve more and better tax service for taxpayers, people with knowledge of tax law should be allowed to participate in tax agents. Accountants and law firms should be allowed to engage in tax agency business instead of being confined to tax firms.

Therefore, opening is another basic principle of tax agency.

Only by allowing high-quality lawyers and CPA to participate in the tax agency industry, will it be more conducive to safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of taxpayers, and then do a good job in the market of tax agents, eventually forming the "three win" of accounting firms, tax agents and law firms.

The 111st provision of the tax agent and the certified tax collector, the certified public accountant, the attorney general, and the detailed rules for the implementation of the tax collection and management law, stipulates that the taxpayers and withholding agents entrust tax agents to handle tax matters on behalf of them shall be stipulated by the State Administration of Taxation.

Obviously, in terms of the law, tax agents are one of the main bodies of the tax agency industry. Certified tax agents, certified public accountants and lawyers are not equal to tax agents.

However, because this provision does not provide the word "qualification", whether it can become the basis for establishing the administrative license of the tax agent's professional qualification is still open to question.

Even if this article is understood as the basis for administrative licensing of professional qualifications, the National People's Congress or the State Council shall set up a license for tax agents separately according to the administrative licensing law implemented in July 1st this year.

According to the normative legal document of China's accession to the WTO, the specific commitments for trade in services, the accounting firm can engage in tax consulting business.

According to the detailed rules for the implementation of the income tax law of foreign invested enterprises and foreign enterprises, taxpayers shall submit the audit reports issued by Chinese registered accountants when the income tax is settled.

According to the "pre tax deduction method for enterprise income tax", taxpayers who report to the tax authorities for approval before tax deduction may be accompanied by the examination certificate of the Chinese registered tax collector or certified public accountant.

According to international practice, in the United States, Canada and most European countries and the Hongkong Special Administrative Region of China, the tax agency business is mainly completed by certified public accountants and lawyers. Even in countries with special tax agency legislation, such as Japan and South Korea, certified public accountants and lawyers can also obtain the qualification of tax agents by themselves.

Obviously, the "closed" industry management is not in conformity with the original intention of the tax agency legislation.

If a certified public accountant is engaged in audit business, it will not affect the independence of the tax agent.

Because tax agents are a by-product of audit reports, certified public accountants must examine the accounting treatment of tax when issuing audit reports. The contents of tax agents and audit reports should be consistent and there should be no contradiction.

CPAs can also avoid taxpayers accepting double examination and lighten taxpayers' burden, which is in line with the overall interests of society.

In conclusion, certified public accountants, registered tax agents and lawyers should have the right to obtain the qualification of tax agents.

Therefore, it is suggested that the competent authorities of tax agency should reconfirm the qualification of tax agents.

Among them, the qualification of the registered tax collector may be abolished. The original registered tax collector automatically obtains the qualification of a B tax agent, and can engage in tax agency business besides the tax examination commissioned by the taxpayer. After having obtained the qualification of a class tax agent through the examination subjects, he may engage in the tax agency business, including the tax examination commissioned by the taxpayer.

Besides, qualified CPA exemption auditing, tax law and accounting subjects have obtained the qualification of a class of tax agents; they have obtained the qualification of class a tax agents, and the exemption from tax law and audit subjects have obtained the qualification of B tax agents.

1. think about the problems existing in the tax agency industry at present. The tax authorities should act as the supervisory organs of the tax agency industry instead of the management organs.

The tax authorities are the only parties who accept the reports of tax agents, they are also opposing interests, forming direct legal relations with taxpayers and tax agents.

If the tax authorities act as the management organs of the tax agency industry, and there is no other third party checks and balances, it is unfair.

As long as the monopolar power system exists, it is difficult to form effective checks and balances.

Relying solely on the self-discipline of the tax authorities and without external supervision, this system is often ineffective from the historical experience.

For this reason, it is suggested that the State Administration of Taxation hold the qualification examination pass and legal supervision, and pfer other functions such as registration, professional practice within the industry, industry self-discipline, etc. to the trade association.

Of course, the premise of such institutional arrangement must be the complete decoupling between industry associations and tax authorities. The tax authorities should supervise the trade associations in accordance with the law, while the trade associations will carry out self-management and self-restraint within the framework of the law.

2. the tax agency business lacks the necessary practice standards.

For example, according to the detailed rules for the implementation of the income tax law of foreign invested enterprises and foreign enterprises, enterprises shall attach the audit reports issued by Chinese registered accountants when the annual income tax is settled.

However, there is a lack of guidelines for the settlement of income tax.

In order to complement the joint annual inspection policy of foreign invested enterprises and conform to international practice and reduce the burden of foreign investment enterprises, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of taxation should formulate guidelines for the collection and calculation of income tax in audit reports (or audit reports), so as to meet the needs of tax authorities' collection and management.

3. it is a completely different legal concept that the tax authorities conduct tax inspection on taxpayers and accept tax entrustment by taxpayers.

The tax authorities conduct tax inspection on taxpayers.

According to the law of tax collection and management, the subject of examination can only be exercised by the tax authorities.

The administrative licensing law also stipulates that the delegation of authority of an administrative organ can only be another administrative organ or social organization, and can not be entrusted to such agencies as tax agents.

The taxpayer commissioned tax agents to conduct tax review on their own is a private civil act, the purpose is to improve the credibility of the tax authorities to declare the tax, so the tax review can only be voluntary, the tax authorities can not force or specify the taxpayer to accept tax agent tax review.

If the tax authorities do not believe the taxpayers themselves declare, nor do they believe that taxpayers accept the tax declaration review of tax agents, they can only send their own inspection authorities to pay tax checks to taxpayers.

4. some local tax authorities do not understand the original intention and legislative intent of the state to formulate tax agents, distort the provisions of the tax agency, and implement the tax agency policy in accordance with the provisions of the tax authorities.

For example, a tax agency and a tax office jointly make the taxpayer mistakenly assume that it is a subsidiary organ of the tax authority, which affects the fairness of the tax agency. The taxpayer is forced to accept the tax agency service, and the compulsory taxpayer illegally accepts the income tax of the registered tax collector, and calculates and checks the accounts.

Such behavior should be corrected in accordance with the law.

Thinking about the tax agency's supervision of tax agency business, we should pay more attention to the number of tax payers. We should increase the number of tax evasion by using related party pactions, and concealing income and increasing expenses. The focus of tax authorities inspection should be on taxpayers who use various illegal means to evade taxes intentionally.

At the same time, the tax authorities, within the scope permitted by laws and regulations, use economic and administrative means to encourage taxpayers to hire tax agencies to declare in accordance with the law.

Specifically, the following countermeasures can be taken: 1. tax authorities should deal with the classification management of tax agents.

According to whether the tax agent accepts the taxpayer's voluntary entrustment for tax inspection, the tax agency project is divided into tax inspection tax agents (category A) and general tax agents (class B).

Class a tax agents must conduct tax reviews according to the tax information provided by taxpayers. B tax agents directly declare to the tax authorities according to the data provided by taxpayers.

The advantage of this is to respect the taxpayer's willingness, to distinguish the cost of tax agency, and to further clarify the legal responsibility of tax agents.

2. distinguishes tax evasion between taxpayers and accounts and encourages tax agents.