On April 6, 2016, 11 departments including the Ministry of Finance, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Commerce, the General Administration of Customs, the State Administration of Taxation, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the State Food and Drug Administration, the Endangered Species Management Office, and the Cryptography Administration jointly announced the “List of Cross-border E-commerce Retail Import Goods” (Announcement No. 40 of 2016), the content of which is as follows:
In order to create a fair and competitive market environment and promote the healthy development of cross-border e-commerce retail imports, the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs, and the State Administration of Taxation have issued the “Notice on the Tax Policy for Cross-border E-commerce Retail Imports” (Cai Guan Shui [2016] No. 18) with the approval of the State Council. In order to implement the tax policy for cross-border e-commerce retail imports, the “List of Cross-border E-commerce Retail Import Goods” is now announced.
Attachment: List of Cross-border E-commerce Retail Import Goods
This list of goods is standardized in accordance with the opinions of relevant competent departments in combination with the pilot situation of cross-border trade e-commerce service imports. The list includes 1,142 8-digit tax number commodities (the list will be adjusted in due course according to the development of cross-border e-commerce, changes in consumer demand and other factors). They are mainly consumer goods that have certain domestic consumption demand, can meet the supervision requirements of relevant departments, and can objectively enter the country by express delivery, mail, etc., including some food and beverages, clothing, shoes and hats, household appliances, and some cosmetics, diapers, children’s toys, thermos cups, etc.
According to the regulations, the commodities on the list will be exempted from submitting licenses to the customs, and the inspection and quarantine supervision and management will be carried out in accordance with the provisions of relevant national laws and regulations; direct purchase commodities are exempted from the verification of customs clearance documents, and online purchase bonded commodities are required to verify the customs clearance documents according to the goods when entering the zone on the “first line”, and are exempted from the verification of customs clearance documents when leaving the zone on the “second line”.
Note: For cross-border e-commerce, the biggest difficulty in implementing this new policy is that customs clearance documents must be provided in accordance with general trade requirements. The so-called customs clearance form refers to the customs clearance form for inbound goods issued by the inspection and quarantine agency. For goods listed in the “Inspection and Quarantine Legal Inspection Catalogue”, purchasers need to provide materials including certificates of origin and inspection and quarantine certificates. Cosmetics, health products and other goods must also be registered with the CFDA. Only after completing the inspection and obtaining the customs clearance form issued by the inspection and quarantine department can the enterprise declare to the customs. Therefore, after the policy was issued, it was postponed three times and will not be implemented before the end of 2018.