Recently, the State Administration of Taxation ("SAT") has issued the Announcement on Adjusting the Declaration for Tax Overpaid Retained for Offsetting by General Value-added Tax Taxpayers (the "Announcement") which shall come into force as of December 1, 2016.
The Announcement expressly states that for Appendix I, Value-added Tax Return (Applicable to General Taxpayers) (the "main declaration form"), attached to the Announcement of the State Administration of Taxation on Matters relating to the Filing of Value-added Tax Returns after the Comprehensive Promotion of the Pilot Program of the Collection of Value-added Tax in Lieu of Business Tax, the Sub-column "Accumulated figures of the current year" under Column "General Items" corresponding to "Tax Overpaid Retained for Offsetting for Previous Period" in Item 13, and the Sub-column "Accumulated figures of the current year" under Column "General Items" corresponding to "Tax Overpaid Retained for Offsetting at the end of Current Period" in Item 20 shall be disused as no figures shall be put in those columns. For a general VAT taxpayer, if the Sub-column "Accumulated figures of the current year" under Column "General Items" corresponding to "Tax Overpaid Retained for Offsetting at the end of Current Period" in Item 20 on its main declaration form is positive prior to the issuance of this Announcement, it shall, within the first tax declaration period after the issuance of this Announcement, carry over such balance on a lump sum basis to the Sub-column "Figure for this month" under Column "General Items" corresponding to "Tax Overpaid Retained for Offsetting for Previous Period" in Item 13.