Tax refund policies at ports of departure along Yangtze expanded

Measures to expand tax refund policies at ports of departure along the Yangtze River were jointly released in January 2018 by the Ministry of Finance(MOF), the General Administration of Customs and the State Administration of Taxation.

Previously, qualified exporters got their refunds at the departure ports once their cargo had departed from any of eight listed ports and was shipped directly to Shanghai Yangshan Port Bonded Area, then was shipped abroad from there.

Now, five more ports have been added to the acceptable ports of departure: Sichuan’s Luzhou Port, Chongqing’s Guoyuan Port, Hubei’s Yichang Port, Jiangsu’s Yongjia Port and Langya Port, increasing the number to 13.

At the same time, Shanghai Waigaoqiao Port has joined Yangshan Port as another port available for goods to leave the border within the policy.

Catering to the actual needs of exporters and shipping enterprises, the direct shipping restriction has also been lifted, setting Suzhou’s Taicang Port, Nanjing’s Longtan Port and Wuhan’s Yangluo Port as three stopover ports.

The refund policy now also applies to those goods declared at the stopover ports as their ports of departure.

Relevant supervision requirements and the implementation process were also refined in the announcement.

Apart from expanding the influence of the tax refund policy, the move was also expected to contribute to the further development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and turn Shanghai into an international shipping center, a MOF official said.