Imported Goods Are Expensive: High Tariffs Are Forcing Foreigners To Buy Abroad.

"Sweeping goods" has become one of the characteristics of Chinese tourists.

Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported that during the Spring Festival of 2015, some shops in Japan were putting down the word "Fu" to attract Chinese tourists.

According to the statistics of the Japanese government, the number of Chinese shoppers in Japan is the most prominent. The latest figures are nearly 140 thousand yen (about 7345.8 yuan) per person, which is far above 20 thousand yen.

15 ml of Estee Lauder Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Eye Synchronized Complex II) China official website sells for 560 yuan, and the US official website sells for 58 yuan, or 362.7 yuan.

More typical is the French brand Louis Vuitton classic Neverfull medium handbag, the official website of China sells for 9650 yuan, the selling price in the US official website is 1260 yuan (about 7880 yuan), the French official website sells for 895 euros (about 6341 yuan), and the Japanese official website sells for 141480 yen (about 7429 yuan).

As a matter of fact, the price and the price of the handbag are not large in the world, while the tax rate of China's entry packages is the lowest 10%.

Generally speaking, import and export duties and value-added tax are required to be imported in China's special stores and exclusive stores. Some of them need to pay consumption tax, plus freight, site rental, wages and benefits, and marketing expenses and profits. If a brand is a multi class agent, the cost of intermediate links will be more.

Deputy director of the China WTO Research Institute, University of International Business and Economics, deputy director of the international bidding and research center of government procurement, Tu Xin Quan, analyzed the outlook Oriental weekly. There are two main reasons for the high price of Chinese imports: first, the overall tax rate in China is relatively high; secondly, the market competition is not enough.

Again, it is also influenced by the global pricing strategy of luxury goods.

According to the analysis of Michel Gutsats, director of MBA and EMBA of Marseille School of Commerce in France, the pricing strategy of luxury brands in the world is based on value pricing, and the value of luxury goods lies in their exclusiveness.

Globally, luxury brands usually develop retail prices based on 3 different regions in Europe, the United States and Asia.

Many large international brands enter the Chinese market at the beginning. They tend to take information asymmetry and adopt a high price strategy, coupled with the extraordinary enthusiasm of domestic consumers to foreign brands. These factors exacerbate the price differences between domestic and foreign brands.

The huge price gap has forced Chinese consumers to go overseas.

The 2014 China luxury goods research report released by Bain showed that in 2014, China's luxury market for the first time showed negative growth, which was 1% lower than that in 2013. Correspondingly, in the global luxury market in 2014, the consumption of mainland Chinese consumers rose by 9% to 380 billion yuan, accounting for 30% of the global luxury market.

This means that Chinese people do not buy at home but they buy luxury goods abroad. Buying and purchasing overseas is becoming a new choice for mainland Chinese consumers.

The report found that

Grow rapidly.

Of the luxuries purchased by Chinese consumers, 70% were purchased overseas or purchased by purchasing agents. In 2013, the proportion was 59%. In 2014, the scale of overseas luxury purchase market was about 55 billion ~750 billion yuan, mainly concentrated on cosmetics purchasing, followed by leather luggage, watches and jewelry.

The total market accounts for about 50% of China's store sales.

As early as 2010, China's accession to the world trade organization's tax reduction commitments had been fully fulfilled. The MFN rate remained unchanged in 2015. The total tariff level of China was 9.8%, of which the average tax rate of agricultural products (13.70, 0.00, 0.00%) was 15.1%, and the industrial product average tax rate was 8.9%.

At present, China has relatively low import tax on capital goods, such as raw materials, commodities and oil, but the tax on consumer goods is relatively high, such as clothing.

Tu Xinquan told this reporter that the design of such a tax rate is more common in developing countries, which is the so-called tariff escalation.

"This is to protect China's industry. As a raw material of industrial inputs, the tariff rate is relatively low, which will enhance the competitiveness of domestic manufactured goods, and the finished products maintain a high tax rate to protect domestic industrial products."

In addition to tariffs, the value-added tax is more influential on prices. At present, the value added tax rate of most of China's imports is 17%, while the United States has no value added tax.

"In the United States, income tax is the main type of tax, and the tax on its circulation is correspondingly low, which is reflected in the low price of commodities; while the main tax in China is in circulation, value-added tax is the main tax category, so it is reflected in higher commodity prices."

Points out.

In April 2014, Japan increased the consumption tax rate to 8% before 5%, but from the scope and calculation method of Japan's consumption tax, it is equivalent to China's value-added tax, and Japan implements a single tax system, and no other value-added tax such as China is added.

Although the consumption tax (VAT) standard rate of many EU member countries is as high as 20%, many countries have adopted a tax reduction measure for food, and a specific variety is applicable to tax reduction rates.

In China, according to the Provisional Regulations on value added tax in People's Republic of China, the duty rate for taxpayers to import goods is 17%, of which grain, tap water, gas, books, feed and other rates are 13%; while France, the standard duty rate for goods and services is 19.6% of its net price, but the preferential tax rate applies to food, certain agricultural products (5.5%), drugs (5.5% or 2.1%), books, newspapers, magazines and certain leisure products.

Another tax category is the consumption tax.

According to the table of consumption tax items and tax rates in the Provisional Regulations of the People's Republic of China on consumption tax, the current consumption tax in China has a total of 25 tax rates of 3%~45%.

Among them, the duty rate of cigarettes is 45%, cosmetics are 30%, and high-end watches are 20%, and cars differ in 1%~40% according to the cylinder capacity.

In China,

For specific goods, value-added tax is generally levied on goods; excise tax is a single taxing, and value-added tax is levied in the circulation of goods.

That is to say, in addition to consumption tax, China's imports should also be subject to VAT at the same time.

According to People's Republic of China Ministry of Finance official network data, the first three quarters of 2014, China's import goods value-added tax, consumption tax revenue of 1 trillion and 66 billion 776 million yuan, an increase of 6.9%, faster than the same period of 17.3 percentage points.

The proportion of value-added tax and consumption tax of imported goods to total tax revenue is 11.8%.