Regular State Council policy briefing

The Central Economic Work Conference made it clear that the proactive fiscal policy should be strengthened to improve its effectiveness. Recently, The State Council held an executive meeting to study the optimization and improvement of some phased tax and fee preferential policies. On March 31, The State Council Information Office held a regular briefing on the policy of The State Council, and relevant officials of the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security introduced the optimization and improvement of some phased preferential tax policies. Let's see --

Q1: How much tax relief can the tax preferential policies announced this time bring to enterprises?

A: The tax reduction and fee reduction policy is an important part of the proactive fiscal policy. According to the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee and The State Council, in order to maintain the continuity and stability of the policy and avoid policy breaks and sharp turns, the Ministry of Finance has clearly extended and optimized the implementation of some tax and fee preferential policies together with relevant departments. The continuation and optimization of the six phased tax and fee preferential policies is expected to reduce the burden on enterprises and business entities by more than 480 billion yuan per year.

Q2: How to better support the development of small and micro enterprises and individual industrial and commercial households in tax policy this year?

A: In January this year, in accordance with the deployment of The State Council, the Ministry of Finance has worked with relevant departments to clarify the relevant preferential policies for value-added tax for small-scale taxpayers. This year's policy measures to support small and micro enterprises and individual businesses mainly include the following:

First, we will improve the income tax policy for small and micro enterprises and individual businesses. From January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2024, the part of the annual taxable income of small and micro enterprises does not exceed 1 million yuan shall be included in the taxable income amount at a reduced rate of 25%, and the enterprise income tax shall be paid at a tax rate of 20%, and the connection and coordination of relevant preferential policies shall be maintained, while the annual taxable income of individual industrial and commercial enterprises does not exceed 1 million yuan. Individual income tax will be halved on the basis of current preferential policies.

The second is to reduce the VAT rate for small-scale taxpayers to 1%.

Third, small-scale taxpayers with monthly sales of 100,000 yuan and below are exempt from value-added tax.

The fourth is to implement 5% and 10% value-added tax deduction for taxpayers of active service industries respectively.

The above policies will form synergy with other existing policies to support small and micro enterprises and individual businesses.

Q3: Continue to reduce the rate of unemployment insurance and work-related injury insurance by stages, how to ensure the general benefit of business entities?

A: Through the embedded levy ratio to the information system, basically achieve the rate reduction "direct to direct", enterprises do not need to apply, zero cost to enjoy the policy. The continued implementation of the rate reduction is expected to reduce the burden of about 180 billion yuan per year, regardless of the nature of enterprises and industries, including small, medium-sized and micro enterprises, individual industrial and commercial businesses and other types of business entities will generally benefit. By reducing unemployment and work-related injury insurance premiums, we will help enterprises reduce employment costs and actively support the development of enterprise relief.

Q4: What is the consideration for increasing the pre-tax deduction rate for R&D expenses of enterprises in eligible industries from 75% to 100%?

A: On March 24, the executive meeting of The State Council decided to increase the pre-tax deduction ratio of R&D expenses of enterprises in eligible industries from 75% to 100%, as an institutional arrangement for long-term implementation, on the one hand, to make other eligible industry enterprises, consistent with the policy of R&D expenses deduction of manufacturing and science and technology smes, and further increase the support for scientific and technological innovation. It is conducive to continuously stimulate the innovation vitality of the management body; On the other hand, as an institutional arrangement, this policy has been implemented for a long time without setting a deadline for implementation, which is conducive to stabilizing the expectations of business entities and boosting the confidence of enterprises in innovation and development.

Q5: What are the preferential policies for the continued implementation of the employment security fund for the disabled?

A: According to the deployment of the executive meeting of The State Council, the continuation of the preferential policy is to continue to reduce the employment security fund for the disabled. The Ministry of Finance has issued a notice, specifically clarifying the continuation of the implementation of the preferential policy of employment security for persons with disabilities, mainly in the following two aspects:

First, the continuation of the implementation of the employment security fund for persons with disabilities by file reduction policy, in which the employment rate of the employer for persons with disabilities reaches 1% (inclusive) or more, but does not reach the proportion prescribed by the provincial, autonomous region, or municipality directly under the Central government, in accordance with the provisions of the amount of 50% of the employment security fund for persons with disabilities. If the employment rate of the employer for the disabled is less than 1%, it is necessary to pay 90% of the required fee to the employment security fund for the disabled. Therefore, preferential policies are implemented in stages according to the proportion of disabled people employed by employers, with the aim of encouraging more disabled people to find employment.

Second, enterprises with less than 30 employees continue to be exempt from employment security payments for the disabled, and the period of implementation of this policy is from January 1 this year to the end of 2027. Preferential policies for employment security funds for persons with disabilities will play a positive role in reducing the burden on employers, especially in supporting the relief and development of small and micro enterprises and individual industrial and commercial households.

Q6: What is the effect of the pre-tax deduction policy for R&D expenses in recent years?

A: From the perspective of tax data, the number of enterprises enjoying the policy of deduction of R&D expenses and the preferential amount are constantly growing.

In 2018, the state increased the proportion of additional deductions for all enterprises' research and development expenses to 75 percent, and 270,000 eligible enterprises enjoyed additional deductions that year, with tax reductions of about 280 billion yuan.

In 2021, the state will increase the percentage of additional deductions for research and development expenses of manufacturing enterprises to 100 percent, and a total of 530,000 eligible enterprises, including the manufacturing industry, will enjoy additional deductions and tax cuts of 660 billion yuan.

In 2022, the state will increase the deduction ratio of research and development expenses of small and medium-sized science and technology enterprises to 100%, and increase the tax reduction of 9 billion yuan for small and medium-sized science and technology enterprises in the first three quarters, and it is expected that all eligible enterprises will reduce tax by 700 billion yuan for the whole year.

The additional deduction of research and development costs and the implementation of preferential policies, supplemented by other series of preferential measures introduced by the state, have greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of enterprises to increase innovation investment. According to statistics, in the past five years, the average annual growth of enterprise research and development investment is about 25%, forming a good cycle of "policy guidance - research and development investment - tax relief - further increase research and development investment". Value-added tax invoice data show that in 2021, the sales of enterprises that enjoy the preferential policy of deducting R&D expenses increased by 1.4 times compared with 2017, with an average annual growth rate of 24.5%, which is 9.5 percentage points higher than the growth rate of all enterprises.

Q7: What role will the extension of the zero-tariff policy on coal imports play?

A: At present, there are still many uncertain and unpredictable factors in the energy market. The Tariff Commission of The State Council has carefully studied factors such as domestic development needs and changes in the supply and demand of the coal market, and decided according to procedures to continue to implement zero tariffs on coal imports from April 1 to the end of this year. Continued implementation of this policy will generally help support the safe and stable supply of domestic coal. Specifically, it can play a role in three aspects:

First, coal prices are still at a relatively high historical level, and the continuation of the policy is conducive to reducing the import cost of coal enterprises.

Second, China's energy structure is dominated by coal, and imported coal occupies a certain proportion in domestic coal consumption. The continuation of the policy is conducive to the use of imported resources to supplement domestic supply, expand coal imports, and support the stable supply of domestic coal.

Third, the continuation of the policy is conducive to promoting the international market competition of coal and realizing the diversification of coal imports.

Q8: How to implement the preferential tax policy?

A: The State Administration of Taxation has studied and launched the "five swift" implementation action arrangements:

First, we quickly issued supporting collection and management documents. Timely cooperate with the Ministry of Finance to make and issue announcements on relevant tax and fee policies, and simultaneously make and issue announcements on the collection and management of tax and fee policies, and clarify the specific operational requirements of relevant tax and fee preferential policies.

Second, we will quickly refine our policy implementation. Based on the extensive collection of taxpayer payers' opinions and suggestions, the relevant policy has been issued on March 29, and strives to improve the certainty of tax and fee policies and the consistency of policy implementation.

Third, quickly upgrade the collection and management information system. In order to grasp the implementation of preferential tax policies, the State Administration of Taxation and the provincial tax bureau, on the basis of preliminary work, lost no time to complete the upgrade of the tax collection and management information system online, starting from April 1, taxpayers can pay fees through the collection and management information system for relevant tax concessions.

The fourth is to optimize the operation function quickly. Streamline and transform the tax processing process, adjust and optimize the functions of the electronic tax bureau in a timely manner, realize the reminder of handling matters, and automatic data pre-filling services, so that taxpayers can enjoy tax preferential policies faster and more convenient "without leaving the house", and ensure that the relevant tax preferential policies are accurately landing and enjoy directly.

Fifth, we quickly carried out policy guidance. Continuously optimize the way of policy publicity, starting from April 1 to carry out the 32nd tax publicity Month activities, with the theme of "tax benefits tens of millions of people build modernization", extensive use of news publicity and network media to strengthen policy publicity. At the same time, through the electronic tax Bureau, relevant tax preferential policies are accurately pushed to taxpayer payers, and efforts are made to achieve "policy finding people" and "sending policies to the door", point-to-point policy counseling is carried out, and every qualified taxpayer payer should enjoy the policy dividend.

In the next step, the State Administration of Taxation will also organize the third batch of measures of the "Convenient tax Spring Breeze Action" in 2023, continue to ask taxpayers who need to pay fees, and specifically launch a number of measures to facilitate tax payment for the implementation of tax preferential policies to provide more intimate services to taxpayers.