What is the difference between general trade and cross-border e-commerce trade?

A, the nature of different

General trade imports belong to the import trade, most of them are a commercial behavior between the enterprises, so the need for import and export contracts, invoices and other basic commercial documents, but also a series of freight documents such as bills of lading.

Cross-border e-commerce face in general is a direct consumer, and for the general consumer, to complete the customs clearance of imported goods is a very time-consuming and labor-intensive things, but also for the Customs and Excise Department, but also need to take up a lot of administrative resources.

Cross-border e-commerce from the intention of the state wants to achieve effective supervision of cross-border e-commerce, to eliminate the "Amoy", "sea generation" and so on the impact of the import market, the normative guidance.

Two, the tax system is different

First of all, the introduction of a keyword "tax system", unlike most countries, China's import and export links in the implementation of the tax system is not a single system, for the import of goods, the distinction between the nature of the tax levied: goods tax and goods tax.

Goods tax is for the general import and export trade behavior generated by the entry and exit of goods tax, the tax standard is the "tax rules", including the determination of the tax code, duty-paid price, supervision of a series of acts such as documents, taxes levied include customs duties, value-added tax, consumption tax.

Double reverse tax and so on. The tax on articles refers to the tax levied on baggage articles and postal articles brought in and out of the country by individuals (Article 46 of the Customs Law), and the standard for taxation is the "Tax List of Imported Articles", which is divided into categories of commodities and determines several grades of taxation, and the type of tax levied is the tax on imported articles (traveling postal tax).

The cross-border e-commerce often contact a word "bonded stock", about this issue, more complex.

The standardized term is "bonded in, postal out" (General Administration of Customs Announcement No. 56 of 2014 has a detailed explanation), which simply means that the goods enter the bonded area duty-free, and when they leave the area, they are subject to postal tax. The tax on goods entering the country and the tax on goods, which is higher or lower can not be generalized, but overall in terms of the amount of tax, the tax on goods may be lower.

Three, the same regulatory

The new policy proposed to implement the general trade regulatory model in the cross-border e-commerce neighborhood, in the cross-border e-commerce industry has triggered a strong shock, and may become a comprehensive pilot area of cross-border e-commerce in the "regular army" of the last straw.

General trade imports are subject to stricter regulation, more stringent and cumbersome formalities, and are more time-consuming.

On the general trade inspection and quarantine cumbersome, to food, for example: for customs clearance need to be accompanied by a certificate of origin, health certificates, food ingredient analysis table, import licenses, the first time a company imports of food products import declaration, entry and exit of food packaging for the record, safety assessment materials and other more than 10 kinds of documents.

Also need to apply for registration of overseas manufacturers, overseas exporters for the record and other prior approval, not only cumbersome procedures, processing time is long, and fails to meet the conditions of prior approval of the goods will not be able to import.

Four, different links

In the era of foreign trade e-commerce, import and export links did not have any shortening or change, while the cross-border e-commerce requirements to minimize or shorten the links in order to minimize intermediate costs.

Fifth, the transaction mode is different

In the era of foreign trade e-commerce, the transaction is completed offline, while cross-border e-commerce is mostly online to complete the transaction directly.

Sixth, different taxes

Foreign trade e-commerce embodies the traditional general trade, involving complex tariffs, value-added tax and consumption tax, while cross-border e-commerce facing the tax is generally much simpler, such as a lot of only involved in the postal tax only.

Seven, different business models

The basic mode of foreign trade e-commerce is B2B, while the mainstream mode of cross-border e-commerce is B2C.

Obviously, cross-border e-commerce is not equal to foreign trade e-commerce, cross-border e-commerce is reflected in the traditional trade e-commerce is very different from the new mode of operation; only the broader cross-border e-commerce also contains foreign trade e-commerce only.

Expanded Information:

The cross-border e-commerce trade has the following characteristics (based on the analysis of cyberspace)

One, GlobalForum

The network is a medium without boundaries, and it has the characteristics of globalization and decentralization. The cross-border e-commerce that depends on the network also has the characteristics of globalization and decentralization. E-commerce compared with the traditional way of trading, one of its important features is that e-commerce is a borderless transaction, the loss of the traditional transaction has the geographical factors.

Internet users do not need to think about crossing national borders to submit products, especially high value-added products and services to the market. The global nature of the Web has had the positive effect of maximizing the *** enjoyment of information, and the negative effect of users having to face risks arising from cultural, political and legal differences.

This development of remote transactions creates many difficulties for tax authorities. The nature of the Web, where tax powers can only be exercised strictly within a country, creates difficulties for tax authorities in exercising tax jurisdiction over online transactions that go beyond a country's borders. Moreover, the Internet sometimes plays the role of a proxy intermediary.

II. Intangibility

The development of the Internet has led to the prevalence of digital transmission of products and services. Digital transmission takes place through the centralization of different types of media, such as data, sound and images, in a globalized network environment, where these media appear in the form of computer data codes and are therefore intangible.

Taking the transmission of an e-mail message as an example, the message is first broken down into millions of packets by the server, and then transmitted to a destination server and reorganized and forwarded to the recipient through different network paths according to the TCP/IP protocol, and the whole process is done instantly in the network.

E-commerce is a special form of digital transmission activity, and its intangible nature makes it difficult for the tax authorities to control and check the seller's transaction activities, and the tax authorities are confronted with transaction records that are embodied in the form of data codes, which makes it impossible for tax verifiers to accurately calculate the proceeds of sales and the proceeds of profits, thus making it difficult for taxation.

Third, anonymity (Anonymous)

Because of the decentralized and global nature of cross-border e-commerce, it is difficult to identify the identity of e-commerce users and their geographic location. Consumers transacting online often do not reveal their true identity and their geographic location, and importantly this does not affect the transaction in any way, and the anonymity of the Web allows consumers to do so.

In a virtual society, the convenience of anonymity quickly leads to an asymmetry of freedom and responsibility. People can enjoy the greatest freedom here, but take on the least responsibility, or even simply avoid responsibility. This obviously creates problems for the tax authorities, which cannot identify the identity and geographic location of taxable online traders, and thus cannot be informed of the taxpayers' transactions and the amount of tax payable, let alone audited and verified.

This part of the transactions and taxpayers in the vision of the tax authorities invisible, which is fatal to the tax authorities. Take eBay as an example. eBay is an online auction company in the U.S. that allows individuals and merchants to auction off any item. eBay has 150 million users so far, and auctions off tens of thousands of items every day, totaling a turnover of more than 80 billion U.S. dollars.

Four, instantaneous (Instantaneously)

For the network, the speed of transmission and geographical distance has nothing to do. The traditional mode of transaction, information exchange methods such as letters, telegrams, faxes, etc., in the information sent and received, there are different lengths of time difference. And information exchange in e-commerce, regardless of the actual spatial and temporal distance, certain digital products (such as audio-visual products, software, etc.) of the transaction, but also can be instantly cleared, ordering, payment, delivery can be completed in an instant.

The immediacy of e-commerce transactions improves the efficiency of people's interactions and transactions, eliminating the intermediary link in traditional transactions, but also hides a legal crisis. In the field of taxation, the immediacy of e-commerce transactions often leads to the arbitrariness of the transaction activities, the e-commerce subject of the transaction activities may be started at any time, at any time, at any time to terminate, at any time to change, which makes it difficult for the tax authorities to grasp the specific transactions of the two sides of the transaction.

Fifth, paperless (Paperless)

E-commerce is mainly paperless operation, which is the main feature of e-commerce in the form of transactions. In e-commerce, electronic computer communication records replace a series of paper transaction documents. Users send or receive electronic messages. As electronic information in the form of bits exist and transmitted, the entire process of sending and receiving information to achieve paperless.

The positive effect of paperlessness is that it frees the transmission of information from the constraints of paper, but because many of the norms of traditional law are based on the regulation of "paper transactions" as a starting point, paperlessness has brought about a certain degree of legal confusion.

Six, rapid evolution (RapidlyEvolving)

The Internet is a new thing, at this stage it is still in the infancy of network facilities and the corresponding software protocols for the future development of a great deal of uncertainty. But what tax lawmakers must consider is that the Internet, like any newborn, is bound to evolve at an unprecedented rate and in unpredictable ways.

Internet-based e-commerce activities are also in the process of rapid change, and in just a few decades electronic transactions have gone through a process from EDI to the rise of e-commerce retailing, while digital products and services are new and constantly changing human life.

And in general, countries pay attention to maintaining the continuity and stability of the law in order to maintain the stability of the society, and the tax law is no exception. This will give rise to the network's super-rapid development and tax legal norms of the relative lag of the contradiction. How to incorporate the network transactions, which are in the process of development and change every minute and second, into the regulation of tax law is a difficult problem in the field of taxation.

The development of the network constantly brings new challenges to the tax authorities, and the tax policy makers and tax law legislators should pay close attention to the development of the network, and take this factor into full consideration when formulating tax policies and tax law norms.

Baidu Encyclopedia - General Trade

Baidu Encyclopedia - Cross-border E-commerce