Reason 1: Incorrect understanding of tax law and tax policy.
Whether the company pays taxes and the amount of tax payable are determined by tax laws, regulations, rules and a series of normative documents. In practice, there are differences in enterprise tax returns, and tax adjustments are also made according to the tax law. Therefore, law is the fundamental attribute of taxation, and accounting is only a measurement tool. In reality, many tax planning based on accounting methods only changed the measurement methods and standards, but did not "cure the problem".
Reason 2: Non-tax costs are not fully considered.
In tax planning, it is often necessary to adjust the transaction mode and structure according to the planning scheme and make a series of business arrangements. Business arrangements will lead to a series of non-tax costs, such as setting up a new company and raising funds for crossing the bridge, which require a certain amount of time and investment in people and property. If these factors are not well coordinated, it will easily lead to the failure of tax planning.
Reason 3: Tax planning will be carried out only after the tax obligation has occurred and been determined.
Although there is an old saying: "It's never too late to mend", this sentence does not apply to the field of tax planning. There are 18 tax types in China, and each tax type stipulates the specific conditions for each tax obligation to occur. Once it is met, it is necessary to fulfill the tax obligation in accordance with relevant procedures. Tax lawyers in China often receive phone calls from individual shareholders at the end of equity transactions, but there is nothing they can do.
Reason 4: Tax planning lacks "reasonable business purpose"
According to the Implementation Measures for Special Tax Adjustment (Trial) (Guo Shui Fa [2009] No.2), the tax authorities can launch a general anti-tax avoidance investigation on "arrangements that do not have reasonable commercial purposes". The most common forms include: (1) abuse of tax incentives; (2) Abuse of tax agreements; (3) Abuse of company organization form; (4) using tax havens to avoid taxes; ? The General Rules for the Administration of Anti-tax Avoidance (for Trial Implementation), which was implemented on February 15, 2005, comprehensively regulates cross-border anti-tax avoidance. Therefore, enterprises need evidence of "reasonable business purpose" in tax planning.
Reason 5: It is called "planning", which is actually tax evasion.
According to the Tax Administration Law (Draft for Comment), tax evasion refers to "taxpayers make false tax returns or fail to declare by means of deception or concealment", in which "deception or concealment" refers to the following situations:
(1) Forges, alters, transfers, conceals or destroys account books, vouchers or other relevant materials; (two) fabricating false tax basis, falsifying expenditures or transferring or concealing income;
(3) defrauding the qualification of tax preference;
(4) Other circumstances stipulated by laws and administrative regulations. At the same time, it stipulates: "Those who evade paying taxes shall be recovered by the tax authorities, and a fine of more than 50% and less than three times the tax that they fail to pay or underpay shall be imposed; Suspected of a crime, transferred to judicial organs for handling according to law. If the withholding agent fails to pay or underpays the tax withheld or underpaid by the means listed in the preceding paragraph, the tax authorities shall recover the tax withheld or underpaid and impose a fine of not less than 50% but not more than three times the tax withheld or underpaid; Anyone suspected of committing a crime shall be transferred to judicial organs for legal treatment. " Tax planning violates criminal responsibility, and the loss outweighs the gain.
Reason 6: Lack of expertise in potential tax risks.
In reality, almost no tax planning scheme is without any legal risks. It can be said that tax legal risk control is accompanied by the whole process of tax planning. Therefore, it is necessary to have a full understanding of tax risks. For example, "planning" through "transfer pricing" usually faces the risk of tax adjustment and tax interest, while realizing the purpose of paying less tax by forging materials may violate administrative responsibility or even criminal responsibility. Therefore, there is a "minefield" in tax planning, and companies need to be cautious.
Reason seven: lack of support from all departments of the company.
Tax planning is a comprehensive work, which needs the participation and cooperation of many departments of the company. Taking the application for the qualification of high-tech enterprises as an example, enterprises need to meet the standards in terms of high-tech income, R&D expenses, core intellectual property rights and the proportion of scientific research personnel. The identification of various indicators depends on the active participation of all departments, and the financial, scientific research, human resources and other departments need to carry out planned and step-by-step promotion 65,438+0-3 years before applying for high-tech identification.
Reason 8: Lack of communication with relevant government departments.
In view of the current situation of China's tax legislation, it is not clear that tax policies are applicable to many matters, which requires enterprises to confirm the specific application of relevant tax policies with government departments in planning. However, it should be reminded that enterprises should have a clear understanding of the planning objectives before consulting related matters, and obtain information that is crucial to the planning scheme, rather than fully informing their own business plans and arrangements. In particular, the Tax Administration Law (Draft for Comment) has added an "appointment ruling system".
Reason 9: The corporate tax rate is too low after planning.
It can be said that there is no impeccable planning scheme, and many planning schemes depend on the information asymmetry of both parties. If the enterprise's tax planning scheme is progressing smoothly in the early stage, but the final tax rate of the enterprise is too low and can't provide reasonable reasons, in this case, it is very easy to be targeted by the tax assessment of the tax authorities, which will lead to tax inspection and audit. Through the "magnifying glass" tax inspection, it is difficult to ensure that the defects of enterprise tax planning will not be discovered by the tax authorities, and it is also possible to "settle accounts after autumn".
Reason 10: Lack of professionals and teams with practical experience.
In fact, all the above reasons can be attributed to "people". Without a professional or team with practical experience in tax planning, it is difficult to ensure that there will be no problems in tax planning. In the United States, many large companies usually hire tax lawyers with experience in risk tax planning. Although the fee is high, it is still welcomed by enterprises.
summary
The above 10 reasons do not exhaust all the reasons for the failure of tax planning, but they are indeed the most common reasons for the failure of tax planning in actual combat. China tax lawyers believe that successful tax planning should have two core characteristics, one is a systematic and feasible tax planning scheme, and the other is a strong ability to implement the scheme as a whole, and both of them are coordinated by professional tax planning talents and teams. At present, some large and medium-sized domestic companies have begun to consciously strengthen the construction of their own tax teams, which is also an inevitable development trend in the future.