WRITTEN REPLY ON THE QUESTION CONCERNING THE LEVY OF BUSINESS TAXON SINO-FOREIGN COOPERATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF REAL ESTATE
WRITTEN REPLY ON THE QUESTION CONCERNING THE LEVY OF BUSINESS TAXON SINO-FOREIGN COOPERATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF REAL ESTATE
(State Administration of Taxation: 6 December 1994 Coded Guo ShuiHan Fa [1994] No. 644)
Whole Doc.
To the Guangdong Provincial State Tax Bureau:
We have recently acknowledged the receipt of a letter from the
Guangzhou Municipal Tax Bureau asking for Instructions on the Question
Concerning the Levy of Business Tax on Cooperative Development of the Real
Estate Sector, a document coded Shui Yi [1994] No. 327. The letter says
that some domestic enterprises have cooperated with foreign businessmen in
building commodity houses on the land where the supply of water,
electricity and gas has been made available and the ground has been
levelled, both parties set up cooperative companies and received business
license, with the Chinese party transferring the land-use right to the
cooperative companies, while the foreign party being responsible for all
funds needed for the building of commodity houses and for the sales of
commodity houses abroad, both sides adopted the distribution methods of
distributing construction area and sales income and drawing fixed profits.
The letter demanded that the question as to how to calculate and levy
business tax related to the behavior of the transfer of land-use right
involved in the above-mentioned business activities. After study, we now
give the written reply as follows:
I. The taxation question concerning tax on Sino-foreign cooperative
construction of houses.
After the Chinese side performs the procedures for the transfer of
the land-use right in its cooperation with the foreign party on the land
it obtains, the method of whether distributing the area of the completed
commodity house, or distributing the income from the sales of the
commodity house does not conform with the stipulations of the current
policy that "business tax is exempt from the behavior of investing and
buying shares with invisible assets, participating in and accepting the
investor's profit distribution and jointly undertaking the investment
risk"; therefore, business tax shall be levied in accordance with the tax
category of "transferring invisible assets"; its business volume should be
all the income actually gained, including charges not included in the
calculated prices; the tax paying time should be the very day when the
income is gained.
At the same time, tax shall also be levied on the sales of commodity
houses. If the method of distributing houses (including the distribution
of area) which are then sold respectively by each party is adopted, then
business tax shall be levied on the incomes from the sales of commodity
houses by both Chinese and foreign parties in accordance with the
stipulation of "selling immovable property"; if the method of unified
sales of houses and redistribution of sales income is adopted, then
business tax is levied on the income from unified sales of commodity
houses in accordance with the stipulation of "selling immovable property";
if the method of paying fixed profits to the Chinese party is adopted,
then business tax is levied on all the incomes gained by the foreign party
from the sales of commodity houses in accordance with the stipulation of
"selling immovable property".
II. The taxation question concerning the development expenses gained
from the first-phase project by the Chinese party
The development expenses for the first-phase project paid in advance
by the foreign party to the Chinese party shall be regarded as the
business income gained by the Chinese party by the method of receiving the
money in advance, business tax is calculated and levied in line with the
stipulation of the transfer of land-use right. With regard to this already
taxed development expense, which shall be accurately deducted from the due
income of the Chinese party, may directly eat up the current business
income of the Chinese party.
III. The fixed profits gained regularly by the Chinese party shall be
regarded as the income gained by the transfer of the land- use right, on
which business tax is calculated and levied.
|