SAT Releases New Taxation Rules to Promote Export Tax Rebates

On August 17, the State Administration of Taxation (SAT) promulgated a Circular on implementing the State Council's Several Opinions on Promoting the Steady Growth in Imports and Exports, which was issued in late July. The Circular raised 16 measures to ensure implementation of export-tax-rebates, focusing on four areas:

• Further accelerate the export-tax-rebate process to ensure timely and full payment of tax rebates
• Further implement export-tax-rebate policies and administrative provisions
• Continuously optimize export-tax-rebate services
• Further strengthen pre-warning evaluation of export tax rebates, carefully prevent and crack down on tax rebate fraud

The Circular called for active implementation of the tax policy for cross-border e-commerce enterprises, and exploring innovative management mechanisms for export tax rebates, such as the "Internet Plus Export Tax Rebates," and emerging technologies such as big data and cloud computing.