The Resource Tax Law will regulate the tax reduction and exemption policy

On August 26, the 12th meeting of the 13th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress held its closing meeting. The conference adopted the Resource Tax Law by 164 votes in favour, 1 against and 2 abstentions. After the meeting, the General Office of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress held a press conference in the Great Hall of the People.

Resource Tax Law will be implemented on September 1, 2020. What preparatory work should be done before implementation?

In response to a question from the Daily Economic News reporter at a press conference, Buxiang, Director of Property Behavior Taxation Department of the State Administration of Taxation, said that there was still one year to go before the implementation of the Resource Tax Law, and the tax authorities would make preparations for the implementation of the Tax Law, and elaborated on three specific tasks.

Resource Tax was levied since 1984. After gradual reform and improvement, the elements of tax system have been basically reasonable and running smoothly. On this basis, China has raised the Provisional Regulations of resource tax to the present resource tax law.

Compared with the current resource tax system, what changes have taken place in the resource tax law passed this time? Xu Guoqiao, a first-level inspector of the Taxation Department of the Ministry of Finance, introduced that there were three major changes in the resource tax law. First, the tax items are unified. According to the current system, the central level lists more than 30 categories of major resources, but the list is not specifically determined by the provincial people's government. The resource tax law passed this time unifies the tax items, lists all taxable resources products in the tax law one by one, and currently lists 164 tax items, covering all minerals and salts that have been found.

The second is to adjust the authority to determine the specific tax rate. According to the current system, the resource tax shall be fixed and the range tax rate shall be applied according to different resource categories, including crude oil, natural gas, heavy and rare earths, and other resources, and the range tax rate shall be applied to other resources. The provincial people's government shall determine the specific tax rate for the taxable resources that implement the range tax rate. The Resource Tax Law continues to adopt two types of tax rates: fixed tax rate and amplitude tax rate. For resources with amplitude tax rate, the specific applicable tax rate shall be specified by the provincial people's government and submitted to the Standing Committee of the People's Congress at the same level for decision in accordance with the requirements of implementing the statutory principle of taxation.

Third, the tax reduction and exemption policy has been standardized. The current policy of resource tax reduction and exemption has both a long-term policy and a phased policy. The tax law of preferential policy, which has been implemented for a long time and proved to be effective in practice, has been clearly stipulated, including the self-use resources in the process of oil and gas exploitation and transportation, and the extraction of coal-bed methane for the sake of safety in production and exemption of resource tax. For low abundance oil and gas fields, high sulfur natural gas, tertiary oil recovery, deepwater oil and gas fields, heavy oil, high pour point oil and depletion mines, resource tax is reduced. Tax authorities will do a good job in policy interpretation and tax guidance about one year before the implementation of the Resource Tax Law on September 1 next year. What preparatory work does the tax authorities have to do to collect and administer? What new changes have been brought to tax collection and management services by the implementation of the Resource Tax Law?

In response to the question raised by the reporter of Daily Economic News at the press conference, Buxiang said that the tax authorities would make preparations for the implementation of the following tax laws as soon as possible:

Firstly, draft and formulate supporting collection and management measures, and refine standardized collection and management measures. The second is to optimize and improve the documents and information system. Streamlining the number of documents and data items for taxpayers to understand and fill in. Optimize the online reporting system to improve the speed of online declaration.

Third, we should do a good job in policy publicity and interpretation, tax guidance and business training to ensure that policies are implemented in place and tax services are optimized in place. Especially, we should focus on training the taxation service department and the first-line window personnel such as 12366, so as to provide timely and accurate answers to taxpayers'questions and doubts. In addition, Bo Xianglai pointed out that the implementation of the Resource Tax Law simplified the period of collection and was conducive to reducing the tax burden. The tax payment period stipulated in the original regulations is one day, three days, five days, ten days, fifteen days or one month. The specific time limit shall also be checked and approved by the competent tax authorities according to the actual situation. The time limit for declaration of most tax categories is not uniform or consistent. The new resource tax law stipulates that taxpayers should declare and pay on a monthly or quarterly basis and change the time limit of declaration from 10 days to 15 days, which will be consistent with other taxes. This will obviously reduce the frequency of taxpayers'declaration and reduce the burden of tax administration. The implementation of the Resource Tax Law strengthens the coordination of departments and is conducive to safeguarding the rights and interests of taxpayers. The collection and management of resources tax is professional and technical, especially the determination of tax reduction and exemption needs the cooperation and assistance of relevant departments. For example, the tax law provides for a 30% reduction in resource tax on mineral products mined in depleted mines, authorizing provinces to reduce or exempt resources tax on low-grade mines. The prerequisite for implementing this policy is the identification of depleted mines and low-grade mines. The new tax law clearly stipulates that tax authorities and relevant departments such as natural resources should establish a working cooperation mechanism. Good departmental cooperation is conducive to reducing disputes over taxation and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of taxpayers.