A new mechanism to supervise income tax payments by foreigners
in the Guangzhou Development District has become so efficient that
revenue from personal income taxes surged in the first 10 months of
2006.
The district taxation bureau has collected US$338 million
(US$41.68 million) from international employees in the first 10
months of this year, a 30 per cent increase year-on-year.
Guangzhou Development District is home to 1,844 foreign-invested
enterprises employing 3,373 international employees.
In May, the Guangzhou Local Taxation Bureau directed all
businesses employing foreigners within the city to create a file
for every international employee, said Zheng Xiaowu, an official
with the district local taxation bureau.
The software-based file system provides tax collectors with
immediate access to detailed information on personal income tax
payments by foreigners, allowing for easy decisions on whether
people are paying the appropriate amount of tax, said Zheng.
He added that since the system had been set up, his bureau had
detected about 40 foreigners who had tried to evade paying personal
taxes. Statistics indicate that only about a third of the
foreigners working in Guangzhou had declared income taxes as
required prior to the mechanism being put into effect.
(China Daily December 14, 2006)