The State Taxation Administration ("STA") has recently issued the Announcement on Further Streamlining Formalities for Tax Administrative Approval Items (the "Announcement"), with effect from December 1, 2019.
Five sections of the Announcement deal with shortening the time frame required for processing, simplifying and consolidating application documents, requiring the submission of fewer materials, streamlining the service procedures, and updating relevant official documents, respectively. The Announcement reads that in examining a taxpayer's application for a delay in tax payments, the tax authority will no longer require the applicant to furnish a separate application report for the delay in tax payments, a document on its current-period currency balance, among other materials regarding expenditure budget that must be presented; instead, the applicant only needs to provide relevant information and state the reasons on the Application Form for Tax Administrative Approval Item; also applicants will no longer be required to provide a proof of previous tax payments for three consecutive months and the balance sheet, and tax authorities will check and verify relevant information by themselves in the information system. Meanwhile, in examining a taxpayer's application for a delay in tax filing, the tax authority will not require the applicant to give a separate explanation of its real difficulty in filing tax returns as scheduled, and instead, allow the applicant to specify the reasons straightly on the Application Form for Tax Administrative Approval Item.