On October 8, Premier Li Keqiang presided over the State Council executive meeting to determine measures to improve the export tax rebate policy and speed up the tax rebate, so as to reduce burdens and maintain stable growth of foreign trade. The meeting decided: from November 1, 2018, in accordance with the principle of structural adjustment, with reference to international practices。

It is worth noting that this is the second time in China that the export tax rebate rate has been raised during the year. In the past two months, the National Standing Committee has mentioned three times to improve the export tax rebate policy and speed up the export tax rebate.

According to the Beijing Youth Daily, after two consecutive State Council executive meetings focused on stabilizing foreign trade in late September, the State Council once again showed good measures for foreign trade on the 8th. This time, the focus of the deployment was on improving the export tax rebate policy and speeding up the tax rebate.

Observing the past three State Council executive meetings, it is not difficult to find that whether it is to reduce the number of regulatory documents to be verified in the import and export process from 86 to 48, or to reduce the import tariff rate of 1585 tax items such as industrial products, or the latest export tax rebates. The New Deal, the core essentials are aimed at reducing the burden on enterprises and maintaining stable growth of foreign trade.

According to the Beijing Business Daily, in September, two consecutive State Council executive meetings have made "trade facilitation" a major issue.

For enterprises affected by Sino-US trade, Minister of Finance Liu Kun said on October 7 that some local enterprises and some enterprises have been affected, but China has the ability to minimize the impact of the impact. For the affected enterprises, the financial department has formulated assistance measures, including coordinating and solving the problems of enterprises in export, supporting internal transfer and skill training of affected enterprises, and helping enterprises to tide over the difficulties.

At the same time, in order to support foreign trade exports, the progress of export tax rebates has accelerated significantly since August. According to the statistics of the State Administration of Taxation, the total amount of export tax rebates in the first half of the year was 780 billion yuan, an increase of 7.3%. From January to August, the national tax authorities handled a total of 105.2 billion yuan in export tax rebates, an increase of 9.5% year-on-year; among them, the export tax rebate was 119.8 billion in August. Yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.8%.

It is understood that from September 15th, the Ministry of Finance will increase the export tax rebate rate for mechanical and electrical, cultural and other products by 1-16 percentage points. According to the official website of the Ministry of Finance, the export tax rebate rate for a total of 397 products has been increased, covering products including chemical, semiconductor, electromechanical, and cultural fields. Among them, about 1/6 of the products belong to the United States on July 6 began to impose tariffs on 50 billion US dollars of Chinese goods, such as pressure reducing valves or lubricants.

Accelerating export tax rebates is conducive to alleviating the huge external pressure of foreign trade enterprises. The export tax rebate is completely different in nature from the subsidy. The latter is not conducive to fair competition in the market, and the export tax rebate is to avoid double taxation. This is the requirement of fair competition. Compared with some products being subject to countervailing duties, China can completely reduce the burden on foreign trade enterprises through export tax rebates. China's export tax rebate level is constantly improving, and the current low-end tax rebates are becoming less and less. Appropriate reduction of tax refund files is a requirement for trade facilitation.

Increasing the current export tax rebate rate will make the tax burden of Chinese enterprises in the international market competition close to other countries. In fact, many countries implement export tax rebate policies to promote export growth, but the tax rebate rate is different in different countries. Some countries actively encourage exports. For the export tax rebate rate, the policy of how much is refunded, but China’s export tax rebate The rate is generally lower than the export value-added tax and consumption tax rate, so this increase in export tax rebate rate will make China's export tax rebate rate is close to the export tax rebate rate of many countries.

The most direct purpose of raising the export tax rebate rate is to reduce the burden on enterprises, and at the same time meet the policy orientation of China's tax reform after the "reform of the camp." Export tax rebate is a tax system that refunds indirect taxes such as value-added tax and consumption tax already paid by enterprises to export enterprises. For exporting companies, the main refund is the value-added tax already paid. Especially in the context of increasing global trade protectionism, it can help companies improve their ability to cope with external environmental shocks.

Export tax rebates are an international practice and almost all countries have export tax rebates. Compared with other countries, China started late in export tax rebates, and its implementation was not smooth. China’s export tax rebate began in 1985. At that time, due to the taxation of China’s circulation links, the more high-value-added products were taxed more, which damaged the competitiveness of products, and the export tax rebate was conducive to solving this problem.

However, although the current value-added tax in China has been reduced from 17% to 16%, the export tax rebate rate for many commodities is 13%, 9% or even lower. The reason is that the resistance of the financial sector is much higher. It is almost normal to get less, and there is a lot of room to increase the export tax rebate rate. Since the Sino-US trade war, China has faced unprecedented severe external challenges. Improving export tax rebates is an effective means to deal with this challenge.

(Source: Economic Daily - China Economic Net. Original title: "Two times to increase the export tax rebate rate during the year. Foreign trade enterprises will then reduce the negative red envelope")