Involving more than 67 million yuan, 5 people on a cross-border e-commerce platform were prosecuted for suspected smuggling

It is reported that these people forged documents to pretend that they were cross-border retail imported goods in order to enjoy preferential tax rates, and evaded a total of more than 67 million yuan in taxes. After investigation, it was found that between 2017 and March 2010, the defendants Wang and Ji, as the actual persons in charge of the defendants Chun Company and Bao Company and the cancelled Ying Company, acted as agents for domestic customers to declare imported cosmetics and other goods. They knew that the goods should be declared for import under the general trade situation, but still decided to forge domestic personal consumption orders, payment orders, and logistics orders to disguise the goods as cross-border retail imported goods, and declared them at low prices through the cross-border e-commerce platforms operated by the above-mentioned companies, so as to enjoy preferential tax rates.

During this period, Wang and Ji instructed company employee Liu and others to forge documents and other acts. According to the calculation of the customs, the amount of tax evasion in this case reached more than 67 million yuan.

In fact, as cross-border e-commerce has become increasingly popular in recent years, some lawless elements are inevitably tempted to do something . As a new type of smuggling crime, cross-border e-commerce smuggling has its own particularities compared to ordinary smuggling . Some people have done statistics. Since 2016, the proportion of crimes committed by natural persons in such cases is only 26.3%, while 73.7% of the cases are corporate crimes. According to the Criminal Law, if a corporate crime is committed, the corporate shall be fined, and the directly responsible supervisor and other directly responsible persons shall be sentenced to criminal penalties.

On March 18, 2021, according to the "Notice on Expanding the Pilot Program of Cross-border E-commerce Retail Imports and Strictly Implementing Regulatory Requirements" issued by the Ministry of Commerce, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs, the State Administration of Taxation, and the State Administration for Market Regulation, the cross-border e-commerce retail import pilot program will be expanded to all free trade pilot zones, cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones, comprehensive bonded zones, import trade promotion innovation demonstration zones, and bonded logistics centers (Type B) cities (and regions). After the relevant cities (regions) are confirmed by the local customs to meet the regulatory requirements, they can carry out online shopping bonded import (customs supervision method code 1210) business in accordance with the requirements of "Shangcaifa [2018] No. 486", which fully reflects the country's emphasis on the development of cross-border e-commerce.

With the development of information technology and the deepening of globalization, the cross-border e-commerce industry has become an important area of ​​national economic trade, and tax incentives and regulatory policies for cross-border e-commerce are emerging in an endless stream. In such an environment, cross-border e-commerce platforms and sellers must operate in compliance with regulations and must not be tempted by the small profits in front of them and embark on a criminal path of breaking the law.

import

Cross-border e-commerce market

Cross-border smuggling