Attention To Business: The Road To Change In Cross Border Import Policy

Why is cross-border mode so red?

First, because the cross-border mode of saving money is intensive overseas + Chinese warehouses + Chinese workers + China Express.

As of October 2015, a total of 8+2 cities (Ningbo, Zhengzhou, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, etc.) were granted approval for cross-border electricity supplier pilot cities, and subsequently led to the establishment of a large number of bonded warehouses. Cross border e-commerce enterprises deliver goods through overseas centralized procurement of goods and bonded areas, and deliver goods to customers in real time with intensive procurement, transportation and logistics. They not only improve service quality and efficiency, but also make effective use of China's competitive labor prices.

In addition, the policy is also good, unified use of postal tax, reduce the cost of electricity supplier tax. Under the traditional customs trade policy, import goods need to be subject to customs duties, value-added tax and consumption tax, while the cross border electricity supplier's import commodities are applicable to the postal tax categories (the rates of postal tax are divided into 10%, 20%, 30% and 50% four stalls), which are exempt from consumption tax and value-added tax, and the tax rate is greatly reduced, which makes the price advantage of the commodity sold fully highlighted.

Moreover, the postal tax has a tax exemption policy of less than 50 yuan. Cross border electricity providers can make use of this point, and for many goods with a single tax payable of not more than 50 yuan, the form of separate electronic declaration will further reduce the average tax burden actually assumed.

The two reason is saving trouble.

Cross border e-commerce mode sends foreign goods directly to users, compresses circulation links, and squeezing the original inefficient supply chain. Under the traditional overseas purchasing or general trade import mode, the overseas brands expand the domestic market, usually rely on domestic agents, the circulation level is higher, the first tier and one level increase profits, and the consumption will eventually pay higher and higher prices. and Cross-border electricity supplier In this mode, the level of circulation is greatly reduced, and the final price of goods is also reduced.

In addition, the policy is also helping enterprises simplify the customs clearance process and enhance the customer experience. After cross border electricity suppliers purchase goods abroad, they will check through customs and commodity inspection once and for all. Then they will be stored in the bonded area uniformly. Customers can deliver goods at the fastest speed.

Why did we cross the border in the first place?

The "legalization" and "sunshine" of cross-border electricity providers are both for consumers, but at the government level, the relevant policies and regulations are also of their own interests. On the whole, there are four reasons for the "sunshine" policy: the need to clean up the "gray" overseas purchasing market. In 2009, the scale of China's overseas purchasing market was 5 billion, and by 2014, this figure increased 30 times to 154 billion 900 million. However, due to the regulatory measures have not yet been standardized, most goods are imported into the form of postal packets. The problems are worrying: 1, the tax leaks are serious, affecting the national import tax; 2, the imported commodities are mixed up, the customs departments are difficult to control, and there are security risks; 3, the transportation process is longer, the goods are damaged more, the consumers' rights and interests are difficult to protect; 4, affect the national trade and business statistics.

The two is the need to guide overseas consumption reflow. Before the legalization of cross-border electricity providers, the main channels of purchase were offshore websites such as "Hai Tao", personal purchase and overseas travel consumption. In 2014, the global market of Chinese consumers Luxury goods Consumption amounted to US $106 billion, accounting for 46% of global consumption, but 76% of consumption occurred outside the country. Attracting overseas consumption reflux is an important direction for expanding domestic demand, and is also one of the starting points of tax adjustment programs.

The three is to push domestic industry development and upgrading. After the sunshine cross-border electricity supplier, more overseas goods enter the domestic market in a legal way, and the competitiveness of domestic products has been strongly affected by the competitiveness of high quality and high price, which will inevitably push the related industries to make innovations and breakthroughs. At the same time, the rise of cross-border electricity providers will synchronously drive the rapid development of logistics, warehousing, financial payment and extension industries.

The four is to reduce the cost of customs clearance pressure. Before sunlight, the fragmentation import mode increased customs customs pressure. Taking Beijing customs as an example, the inbound and outbound mail monitored by postal channels in 2014 increased by 29.63% over the same period in 2013. According to the calculation, its daily average monitoring volume was about 275 thousand, and the daily mail per person was about 11 thousand and 500. After the liberalization of cross-border electricity providers, cross-border e-commerce enterprises will import bonded products in pilot cities in a centralized declaration form, which will help to reduce customs clearance pressure and promote the establishment of new regulatory models and systems.

Why can't we just wait for the tax change boots to come down?

In the early days of creation, "Huairou amnesty"

The explosive growth of cross-border electricity providers is directly due to the inducement of tax policy dividends. The fundamental reason is the temporary profit and compromise between the government and overseas purchasing agents (including personal purchasing and enterprise agent import) in the market game.

Before the sunshine "cross-border electricity supplier", Overseas purchasing The scale of the market is growing, but it is fragmented. In such a case, if the government is allowed to leave, it will lead to serious tax revenue loss. If the government controls strictly, it will not only increase administrative burden, but also be unable to catch up. If the government completely suppressing it, it will run counter to market demand and will not be effective. It will also stimulate more "grey market" to breed.

As a result, the government relaxed tax and regulatory policies, allowed cross-border electricity providers to exist legally, and replaced general trade import tax with postal tax. Through cross-border electricity suppliers to suppress overseas purchasing gray market, to achieve the relative growth of government revenue, but also to achieve rapid import market. In addition, a large influx of capital has also stimulated the vitality of the market as a whole.

In the stable era, "long line, big fish"

The postal tax is much lower than the general trade import tax (including tariff, consumption tax and value-added tax). In the long run, the government has made little profit in increasing the tax revenue, and there is a large number of imported low value products which are difficult to achieve the maximum economic benefits. Therefore, the government's policy of "amnesty" is a strategy to slow down the army. Its fundamental goal is to lay a long line and catch a big fish through long-term games with cross-border electricity suppliers. The reasons are as follows:

First, the tax gap brings arbitrage opportunities, which affect taxation and trade equity. The purpose of the postal tax is to facilitate personal carrying or mailing a small amount of goods for personal use, not having commercial essence, but at present, the cross border electricity supplier is used for business purposes, which is contrary to the significance of the establishment of tax categories. Customs currently adopts the classification method of "goods" and "goods" for imported goods, and applies differentiated tax policies, but it can not make effective distinction, which makes arbitrage behavior exist in large numbers and violates tax fairness.

The two is the impact on the domestic market. Cross border e-commerce products are favored by domestic consumers, mainly because of their superior quality and low price advantage. B2C long term development of cross-border electricity providers may force China's manufacturing enterprises to improve their product quality in the long run, but in the short term, they will have an impact on domestic enterprises, which will cause the real economy with weak growth in China to be affected.

The three is the impact of long-term tax revenue. According to China Customs data, in the first 11 months of 2014, customs officers collected a total of 441 million 309 thousand yuan in postal tax, accounting for a small proportion of revenue. With the vigorous development of cross-border electricity providers, the import of large quantities of goods through postal tax, low tax rate or even tax exemption policy may affect the total tax revenue.

Where will the sun rise tomorrow?

Faced with these problems, it is necessary for the government to constantly adjust its policy measures, that is, the "tax reform boots". About the possibility of tax reform policy, this time has been overwhelming, in short, one sentence - otherwise, the loss of enterprises, or consumer losses. Then, how will the cross-border industries evolve in the post tax reform era?

1, the ideal outcome of the game business is the cross-border electricity supplier entering the stable stage. The profit margin of the industry decreases. At the same time, because of the control of the lower purchase amount, the total market size of the market is rapidly compressed and the imagination space is weak. But the rest of the cross-border electricity supplier enterprises are still sustainable, and share with the government.

The threshold of cross-border import electricity providers is not high, resulting in intensified market competition. The industry will have a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the future. When consumer habits and customer stickiness refer to a certain height, a large number of grey markets are cleared out, and finally the remaining large platforms with a few resources are concentrated.

At this time, the government has the conditions to increase taxes: spend less administrative costs to manage a few large platforms, at the same time, grasp the import data, reduce the risk of dangerous goods inflow, and gradually increase the tax burden, narrowing the differences with traditional import channels.

For the cross-border electricity supplier platform after the survival of the fittest, at this time, even to a certain extent, it is also beneficial to the government, but the scale effect and brand advantage already exist, and it can still maintain operation.

2. The actual state of cross border industry in circular games.

As long as the government tightens the policy again, the price advantage of cross-border electricity providers will be weakened, and the arbitrage space of the purchasing market will also expand again. The game between the three governments, overseas purchasing agents and cross-border electricity suppliers may be repeated again and again.

Of course, this possibility is large but low. But whether it is water, or ash, or the Universal Postal Union, it is an inevitable price depression, so that bad money drives out good money again.

Therefore, no matter whether the policy tendency is based on goods taxation, postal mail "dual track system" or "one size fits all" is a higher tax rate, arbitrage behavior is inevitable if there is a significant interest rate difference. The fundamental way to solve the arbitrage problem is to reduce the spread, that is to reduce the comprehensive tax burden. However, tax maximization is always an important starting point for policy formulation. What frequency and intensity to reduce tax gap is a difficult problem facing the government. At present, the elder brothers have made up their minds.

Finally, I would like to add that the nature of cross border import commodities may be regarded as "goods" in the new deal that may be implemented, which provides a legal basis for the supervision of the inspection and quarantine departments. The cross border import commodities will probably adopt the white list access system in the future, which will further cast a shadow over the future choice of cross border imports. However, the specific effects will remain unclear until the plan of the quarantine inspection department is released.