Firm

On August 31 2018, the revised IIT Law was passed by China's Parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC). The revised law will come into full effect from January 1 2019. In advance of this, revised IIT standard personal deductions and tax rates tables have applied from October 1 2018. Following on from this, on October 20 2018 the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the State Administration of Taxation (SAT), released draft IIT Law implementation rules, as well as the draft guidance on itemised deductions thresholds, both for public consultation. The consultation period has now ended but the final rules are still to be released.

The tax authority under a formal and strict application of such criterion has rejected expenses that were perfectly reasonable from a business perspective.

On October 2 2018, the EU Council agreed to adopt several proposals from the European Commission to reform the EU VAT system. These proposals included four 'quick fixes' to the prevailing regime that will apply to improve the functioning of the existing VAT system, pending the introduction of the 'definitive' VAT system that is still the subject of continuing discussion.