Sino-US "electric levying" concussion

Intern reporter Shing Shanghai report

Jindong by Suning chairman of the "Electric business tax" has been a stone stirred the waves, not only to Su Ning and Taobao interest contradictions openly intensified, and a traditional physical retail and e-commerce retail battle has begun.

Gripping: When the old hemisphere levying, the same proposition in the Western Hemisphere is coming to an climax. The United States Senate will vote on the Market Equity Act (The Marketplace Fairness Act) as early as March 22.

The bill, which concerns the future fate of the US electric trader, made a noise last month.

On February 16 This year, the U.S. Senate again filed a review of the fair-market Act, the main element of which is to allow U.S. state governments to impose local sales taxes on network-electric-power companies in the context of simplifying their tax laws.

The tax path is: The network electric Business enterprise collects the consumption tax to the consumer, then the electricity merchant's state state government collects the sales tax to the electricity merchant enterprise. It is noteworthy that this is also the first national Internet consumption tax proposal in the history of the United States, which will require many manufacturers, including ebay, to pay sales tax to the local government.

ebay objected: "If the bill were to be implemented, it would have a huge impact on the large number of small owners who set up online shops on ebay, especially small businesses with annual sales of less than $1 million trillion." ”

What happens next is exactly the same as China.

When Gome and Lenovo expressed their solidarity with jindong, hundreds of of offline retail companies, including Best Buy, Home Depot and Wal-Mart, collectively stood up to support the Fair Act.

And when the Western Hemisphere comes to its climax, China's policy tightening on e-commerce taxes may come sooner than expected.

According to our correspondent from the wind circle to get the message: China's Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Finance have been secretly held in Beijing by the Electronic Business platform has invested VC and PE people of the meeting, which is a crucial meeting agenda, not to attend to the investment agencies should be levied levying, but the specific implementation of how to collect, how to operate.

However, this parallel occurrence in the eastern hemisphere of the electric levying is not the most exciting, what is really exciting is: whether the Eastern hemisphere or the Western hemisphere of which is required to levy electricity levying, China will have small and medium-sized interests are directly affected.

Since 2007, China has a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises on the ebay global platform to sell their goods to American consumers. In other words, if the Fair Act is passed, China will have a certain number of small and medium enterprise interests to be hit.

"We have no way to comment. "We are also paying close attention to the progress of things," ebay's China-related official said in a reply to our correspondent on March 20. ”

Two camps

The party, represented by Wal-Mart, Amazon, and another on ebay, stood as two teams. Interestingly, internet companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, LivingSocial and AOL all stand with ebay.

Ebay may be the biggest company to rebound from the Market Equity Act.

While the bill will not drastically change the way ebay does business, ebay believes it will affect the survival of sellers on ebay.

"Small economies should not face new taxes. "It would be a disaster for them to do so," defended Brian Bieron, head of global PR relations at ebay. ”

Like Taobao, ebay doesn't want this to happen because consumers are taxed on purchases and may reduce the likelihood of their online purchases, reducing the amount of trading on the platform and losing the competitive advantage of traditional retailers. And smaller businesses will be more thinly traded online.

However, the first line of firm support for the Fair Act was rapidly forming.

They include Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Home Depot, Sears and other traditional American retailers. This line of companies thinks they've been wronged for years: Because over the years, ebay has a comparative advantage over them, which is unfair when it comes to trading without having to impose a consumer tax on consumers.

It is noteworthy that the same E-commerce company's Amazon is also impressively in the column.

This led to a long history of the United States. First, the laws of the United States vary by state. Second, in the 90 's, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that if retailers sell their products to clients outside the state, the state cannot force local retailers to charge a excise tax on transactions unless the retailer has a department and enough business presence in the state where the customer is located.

Amazon is headquartered in Seattle, and Seattle belongs to Washington state. In the past few years, when Amazon began building warehouses in California State, the California government asked Amazon to pay a excise tax in September 2012. In other words, California consumers have already been charged a excise tax by Amazon when they buy it online.

According to the reporter to the Amazon English official website inquiry: Currently by Amazon or Amazon affiliate directly sent items, and sent to nine states to pay excise tax. The nine states are: Arizona, California, Kansas, Kentucky State, New York, North Dakota State, Pennsylvania State, Texas State and Washington state.

That is to say: If the Fair Act is passed, its variable is that the buyer and seller of the retailer's net-buying transaction, even if they are in different states and do not have the same threshold as Amazon, will face a excise tax on their local state governments.

As a result, the party, represented by Wal-Mart, Amazon, and another on ebay, stood as two teams.

Interestingly, internet companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, LivingSocial and AOL all stand with ebay to form a coalition of small internet retailers, and one reason they protest is that if the government passes a bill that can be taxed, there will inevitably be other similar tax-raising bills.

However, the Market Equity Act has exempted some smaller companies. If a retailer, whose annual sales from interstate transactions in the previous year were less than 1 million dollars, it could apply for a tax exemption, according to the US technology blog AllThingsD.

But ebay's attack on the market Fair Act, the 1 million-dollar benchmark, is a bit arbitrary.

To benefit more sellers on the ebay platform, ebay's global PR director Bieron the U.S. Senate and the public: "The U.S. defines small businesses as 30 million dollars in sales." ”

If ebay's request is met, it will be 30 times times the exemption line for the Fair Act, which will "save" a significant number of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Chinese interests

If the Fair Act is voted by the U.S. Senate, China will have a certain number of small and medium enterprises ' interests directly affected.

It is noteworthy that if the Fair Act is voted by the U.S. Senate, China will have a certain number of small and medium-sized enterprises ' interests are directly affected.

According to reporters, since the end of 2006 with Tom set up a joint venture and hand over the Chinese consumer-to-consumer business, ebay is not really in the Chinese market disappeared, but instead low-key to engage in foreign trade business, the Chinese small and medium enterprises to the U.S. consumer, let us consumers through the ebay platform to buy their goods.

In the first quarter of 2012, ebay China achieved a total revenue of 3.3 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 29%, a net profit of 570 million dollars and an increase of 19.7% per cent year-on-year. Among them, cross-border trade rose to 18% of ebay's global business and Chinese sellers ' cross-border turnover rose by as much as 70% to 80%.

On the other hand, although the European debt crisis continued to ferment last year, the U.S. employment market continued to slump, China's 2012 GDP growth forecast, China's foreign trade E-commerce is a solo show, showing a strong growth trend.

Last November, ebay China published a report on e-commerce in Greater China, which shows the growth of cross-border trade in Greater China (Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan) is booming. ebay's report points out that in the past 12 months as of June 30, 2012, PayPal was used as the main method of payment on ebay platforms, with annual sales of more than 100,000 U.S. dollars ("Big ebay sellers"), with total sales growing 68% from last year.

Among them, mainland Chinese sellers ' turnover rose by as much as 93%.

However, as ebay reported sample companies with annual sales of more than 100,000 dollars of sellers, reporters do not know how many of these sellers of the annual sales of more than 1 million U.S. dollars. Ebay China also did not disclose the number of Chinese SMEs currently on ebay's global platform.

On the other side of the ocean, ebay has also failed to disclose how many of the small sellers who set up online stores in ebay applied to the Fair Act, but said: Most sellers on ebay also sell on corporate electric platforms, so they are not so clear about the scope of the Fair Act.

But the United States is the top ten exporters of China's SME sellers, and in the long run Cross-border business is indeed a growth force in China.

First on the big trend, last November, when ebay released the report, its Greater China chief executive, Lin, said in reply to the reporter's question: "As a result of macroeconomic issues, vertical comparisons of ebay's online business growth have been somewhat slippery compared to previous years." But the horizontal comparison, the electronic commerce's reverse city growth is very obvious. In fact, it's not just ebay, which used to account for only 9% of E-commerce in the U.S., which now accounts for 10%. ”

Jack Ma, the chairman of Alibaba Group, Asian the Credit Suisse Asia Investment Conference (Investment Conference) in Hong Kong a few days ago: "In the next five years, the sales of Chinese electricity dealers will account for the total retail trade in China 30%,30% Or keep the expected data, the real situation may be higher. ”

Second, Lin has also responded to why, compared to Hong Kong and Taiwan, last year China's mainland of this foreign trade, the market growth of the most prominent.

"China has its own product advantages, such as Guangdong Province, the largest, because the Pearl River delta, the factories are there, China's manufacturing industry is very developed." China's previous problems were: the first logistics is not very good, the second does not understand the consumption habits of foreign consumers. "Lin said:" Now on the logistics issue, ebay has united China Post and the United States Postal Service, the launch of international e-mail cargo services, the current service for more than 40 city sellers to provide services, daily processing 100,000 packages, in mainland China, 60% of ebay sellers through this service to the United States, More than 80% of the packages can be reached within 10 days. ”

"And in the understanding of the consumer habits of foreign consumers, now more than 95% of Chinese sellers are also 14 days to refund money, China has been aware of foreign sales is the case." So China has a large base, and now many aspects of the problem has been resolved, the seller will be willing to continue to expand development. "Lin points out.

Again, ebay has planned to invest more in China last year. Previously, ZTE (000063, shares) and Fank have already settled on ebay to sell their goods to global consumers, including the US. Last April, Lin, who took office, was preparing and deepening the four strategies for cross-border business in China: Vertical category, more active communication with Chinese sellers, data analysis support and perfect logistics solution.

The Eastern and Western Hemisphere

Both sides of the matter are still in progress, the only certainty is: if China and the United States in their respective environment, the respective definition of the electricity levying are passed, the Chinese SMEs involved in the need not to repeat the payment.

"China is likely to go faster than the US in terms of tax revenue." "Another E-commerce company, who declined to be named, pointed out to our correspondent.

It is noteworthy that at the secret meeting in Beijing, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Finance to attend the investment experience of the Electronic Business VC, PE investment institutions to consult the levying is not should be levied, but the specific implementation of how to collect, how to operate.

Su Ning Chairman Jindong the two meetings proposal "strengthens the electric levying research" has aroused the widespread controversy of the folk. He will be targeted at Taobao, as the National Consultative Committee member in the proposal pointed out that there are counterfeit, tort, non-tax sales in the Consumer-to-consumer transaction, and calls for tax on the electricity dealers.

This proposal also let Su Ning and Taobao interest contradictions openly intensified. For the discussion that Jindong sparked, Taobao quickly responded with no naming, saying that taxing the electricity dealers was a tax on self-employed shopkeepers who had no money or background, and even raised the proposal to "be taxed on the hopes and future of young people".

Su Ning submits the motion is in oppress the common people. Huang Kaiping, a tax researcher at the Institute of Social and Economic research, said in an interview with our correspondent: China and the United States have different backgrounds, and most of the owners of Taobao have paid taxes. As long as it is registered in the Trade and Industry Bureau of SMEs and even self-employed, have paid taxes. Including consumers in the purchase of products, there will be invoices. So the Suning bill actually became: for unregistered Taobao personal sales behavior, the demand to pay taxes.

"Suning behavior is like Wal-Mart's advocacy of tax-booth taxes, is the power of the class by gaining the right to speak, to further combat competition, and bullying very small and weak people (even registered Taobao small shopkeeper)." "Huang Kaiping that the current tax burden is too heavy for this group of vulnerable groups of society to levy further tax, it is not reasonable."

Huang Kaiping also pointed out the feasibility and conditions of the Jindong proposal: "This requires a lot of tax power, and the cost of taxing is too high." A great deal of statistical, monitoring and management work is required. And many Taobao shopkeepers, it is difficult to find people, taxing very difficult, levy 10 yuan, the cost may have 8 yuan. ”

"If it has to be done, Taobao needs to provide the tax authorities with complete sales records and data," he said. Taobao is granted the function of collection and payment, Taobao can now provide the function of income tax on behalf of the collection, but at present it does not have the legal ability to collect and pay sales tax. "Huang Kaiping said.

On the other side, Hector Barreto, a former administrator of the US Small Business administration, wrote in a statement entitled "Sales tax should be equal to all businesses": "If ebay wins, the main traditional retailer will have to continue an arduous battle with an increasingly large network of vendors." ”

"Obviously, everything has changed and more and more businesses are trading on the internet every day." Barreto writes that legal judgments based on the environment of the 90 's have not been in line with the trend of the times and are no good for solving social problems. Barreto, an electric-business company like ebay, got the advantage of its traditional offline retailer in the first place, but at the same time, the state of the electric-business firms is in financial tension, and if the Internet consumption tax is passed, the taxes paid to the states by the electricity companies can be used to solve some of the local social problems.

Barreto also objected to ebay's attempts to exempt the rules of the Market Equity Act from the baseline, and disagreed with the 1 million dollar change to 30 million dollars. On the other side, some supporters of the Internet excise tax say they are optimistic that the imposition of a network excise tax is inevitable, but only a matter of time.

At present, both sides of the matter are still in progress, the only certainty is: if China and the United States in their respective environment, the respective definition of the electricity levying are passed, involving Chinese SMEs do not need to repeat the payment.

"If it is export trade, even if the new tax policy is introduced, China and most of the trade countries have the agreement to avoid double taxation, when the Chinese products are closed (for example, to the United States), the Chinese government will refund value-added tax, the United States will levy VAT when the U.S. entry." "Huang Kaiping said.