The State Taxation Administration ("STA") has recently issued the Announcement on Matters Concerning Expanding the Pilot Scheme on Enabling Small-scale Taxpayers to Issue Special Value-added Tax Invoices on Their Own (the "Announcement"), with effect from March 1, 2019.
The Announcement states that, another three industries, namely the leasing and commercial service industry, the scientific research and technical service industry, and the resident service, repair and other services industry will be covered by the pilot scheme. Taxpayers involved in the pilot scheme may opt to use the value-added tax (VAT) invoice management system to issue on their own the special VAT invoices, or to apply to tax authorities for issuing special VAT invoices on their behalf; if small-scale taxpayers have already selected to issue special VAT invoices by themselves, tax authorities will no longer issue the special VAT invoices for them on their behalf. Also, the Announcement reads that, all small-scale taxpayers in the industries covered by the pilot scheme may, on a voluntary basis, use the VAT invoice management system to issue special VAT invoices on their own, free from the upper limit on the monthly sales amount. Moreover, the Announcement expressly states that, the scope of taxpayers for whom VAT invoice certification is cancelled will be expanded to cover all general taxpayers.