Please Note! Three Departments Introduced A New Export Tax Rebate Policy For Cross-Border E-Commerce Goods

For reasons of stagnation and return, goods (excluding food) returned to the country in their original condition within six months from the date of export will be exempt from import tariffs and import link VAT and consumption tax.

 

With the gradual liberalization of the epidemic, the cross-border e-commerce industry also ushered in the support of new policies to support cross-border sellers to go to sea smoothly and show the new vitality of foreign trade.

 

In order to reduce the cost of export refunds for cross-border e-commerce enterprises and actively support the development of new foreign trade, the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs and the General Administration of Taxation have recently jointly issued the Announcement on Taxation Policies for Cross-border E-commerce Export Refunds (No. 4 of 2023) (hereinafter referred to as "Announcement").

 

According to reports, in the past, cross-border e-commerce has been facing the problem of "difficult returns". For example, for overseas consumers' return applications, the merchant's handling method is generally divided into two cases: 

 

1, for low-unit-price goods, although some goods can be sold twice, but due to the limited energy of the overseas team and high operating costs, will choose to cooperate with the logistics company or overseas warehouse company to destroy the processing, loss of commodity value, and will incur destruction costs.

 

2, for high unit price or large goods, such as can not be secondary sales, or parts need to repair, usually will consider returning to the domestic, the goods need to import mode back to the mainland, or returned to Hong Kong by the merchants to pick up, in addition to freight costs, but also may produce import duties and other costs.

 

According to the recently released "Announcement", in the future, the goods (excluding food) declared for export under the cross-border e-commerce customs supervision codes (1210, 9610, 9710, 9810) and returned to China in the same condition within six months from the date of export due to demurrage or return will be exempt from import tariffs and import-related VAT and consumption tax.

 

At the same time, the export tariffs levied at the time of export will be refunded, and the VAT and excise taxes levied at the time of export will be implemented with reference to the relevant tax provisions for the return of goods occurring in domestic sales. The exported goods under supervision code 1210 should be returned to the domestic area within 6 months from the date of departure from the customs special supervision area or bonded logistics center (Type B).

 

Therefore, the introduction of the new policy is undoubtedly a gospel for the majority of sellers, meaning that in the future for cross-border e-commerce, whether it is sent to overseas consumers after the return of goods, or stocked in overseas warehouses after the generation of slow-moving goods, as long as necessary and in accordance with the provisions, to provide relevant explanatory materials, are expected to return to our territory without increasing tax costs.