Recently, the State Administration of Taxation and the China Banking Regulatory Commission have jointly issued the Circular on Further Promoting the Bank-Tax Interaction Program (the "Circular").
The Circular proposes ten specific measures form four perspectives, including improving the bank-tax cooperation mechanism, stepping up efforts to exchange information between banks and tax authorities, and promoting innovations in bank-tax cooperation. The Circular calls for pushing tax-payment credit information in a wider range, covering the list of enterprises rated as from Class A to Class D in terms of their tax-payment credit, their registered addresses, business locations, contact information, legal representatives, etc. Tax authorities could provide banking financial institutions with information about enterprises' tax payment, while banking financial institutions shall cooperate actively with the check of information on certain taxpayers' bank account as requested by tax authorities, and provide the required information in a compliance manner according to the law. Moreover, the Circular clearly states that subjects enjoying the benefits brought by the Bank-Tax Interaction Program will include not only enterprises with tax-payment credit grated as Class A but also those with their credit graded as Class B, and banking financial institutions are encouraged to work out products in the credit loan nature for those small and micro enterprises with honest tax payment behaviors, sound business conditions and good development prospects.