Recently, four departments including the State Administration for Industry and Commerce have issued the Opinions on Consolidating the Business License and the Tax Registration Certificate into One for Individually Owned Business (the "Opinions").
The Opinions sets forth the achievement of real-time data exchange between departments for industry and commerce and tax authorities through the consolidation of the two certificates of business license and tax registration licenses into one instrument for individually-owned business, which in turn is to be achieved by the issue of one business license to each individually-owned business marked with a unified social code for legal persons and other organizations. In view of this, the Opinions specify reform tasks in seven aspects, including "unifying registration conditions and regulating registration procedures". The Opinions also state that applicants may fill out only "one form" and submit only "one set of documents" to "one service window" while going through the registration procedures for individually-owned business. Once the departments for industry and commerce have accepted and approved the applications, they will issue a business license marked with a unified social credit code to the applicants and also disclose the same through the national enterprise credit information disclosure system. The Opinions also specify that the policy of "Two Certificates into One" will be carried out as a pilot program in Shanghai and other three areas as of October 1, 2016.