State Administration of Taxation, Administration of Tax Assessment Procedures (Trial Implementation)

Issued: March 11 2005
Applicability: The term 'tax assessment' refers to administrative acts by which tax authorities, by the method of comparative analysis on data and information, make qualitative and quantitative judgment on the truthfulness and accuracy of the details of tax returns (including applications for tax reduction, tax mitigation, tax credit and tax rebates) filed by taxpayers and tax withholding agents (hereafter, Taxpayers), and adopt further collection and administrative measures (Article 2).

Main contents: Tax assessment work mainly includes: setting up assessment benchmarks and their early warning thresholds in accordance with macro tax collection analysis, results from monitoring tax burdens of industries and relevant data; selection of assessment subjects by combining various methods of comparative analysis; conducting in-depth analysis for the exceptional cases selected and making qualitative and quantitative judgment thereof; handling problems arising from assessment and analysis by such methods as discussions on the tax matters, investigation and verification, handling and punishment, proposing suggestions on administration and transferral to the audit department for investigation and handling; and maintenance and updating sources of tax revenue, and provision of basic information for macro tax collection analysis and monitoring of tax burdens of industries, etc. (Article 5). The Procedures give details on the tax assessment benchmarks (Part Two), tax assessment subjects (which may be selected by such methods as automatic selection by computers, selection by human analysis and sampling (Article 10)) (Part Three), methods of tax assessment (Part Four), handling of assessment results (Part Five), and administration of assessment work (Part Six).