Editor's Note: In recent years, the tax authorities have carried out the "strong foundation project" of tax collection and management under the condition of digital transformation, and promoted tax administration according to law, tax administration by numbers and strict tax administration. In terms of tax management by numbers, tax authorities in many places use big data analysis and other technical means to jointly realize tax management by multiple departments, accurately discover taxpayers' tax-related risks and crack down on tax-related violations. Enterprises in the coal industry have tax-related risks to varying degrees in mining, sales and equity transfer. In view of the characteristics of the coal industry, some local tax authorities have recently innovated a new tax supervision model to urge taxpayers to pay back taxes and fees and improve tax compliance. Based on the latest tax supervision measures in the coal industry, this paper takes the links with frequent tax risks as the starting point to provide reference for tax compliance of enterprises in the coal industry.

I. The coal mining link: water resources tax "small taxes" can not be ignored.

Since December 1, 2024, the pilot project of changing water resources fees into taxes has been fully implemented nationwide. Units and individuals who directly access surface water or groundwater in China are taxpayers of water resources tax. In the coal industry, it is a necessary daily operation for coal mining enterprises to reduce water inflow and prevent underground water seepage through drainage, and drainage involves the tax obligation of water resources tax, and enterprises need to pay water resources tax according to the displacement.

In recent years, the tax administration department of large enterprises in a provincial tax bureau has refined the classification of enterprises according to the standards of whether to apply for a certificate, the type of over-exploitation area and the type of special industry, established a tax source monitoring account, implemented dynamic management of the account according to the information of newly-added water-taking enterprises, the water resources demonstration report of construction projects and the approval of projects, the transaction of water rights of enterprises, temporary water intake and other information, and built a "data pool" for tax source monitoring, with water intake and displacement as the main observation points, and timely scanned and confirmed the risk doubts. For example, the tax authorities found that the average monthly growth rate of operating income of a coal mining enterprise continued to rise by analyzing the index of "comparison of the growth trend of operating income growth and drainage water resource tax", but the drainage water resource tax closely related to its mining business was not declared for a long time, which was unreasonable. The tax authorities finally urged the company to pay back the water resource tax and add a late payment fee of more than 22 million yuan through reading materials and comparing the desks.

However, a city tax bureau screens the tax-related risks of coal enterprises by comparing the compensation fees for soil and water conservation with the tax data of water resources tax. There is a correlation between the water and soil conservation compensation fee and the amount of water resources tax. The water and soil conservation compensation fee is calculated according to the coal output, and the water resources tax is calculated according to the water and soil conservation fee declared and paid by the enterprise in the same area, so as to compare whether the amount of water resources tax paid for this output is within a reasonable range. If the coal output data as the charging basis is significantly higher than the coal output data converted from the water resources intake, the enterprise may pay less water resources tax. In the past two years, the Municipal Taxation Bureau has collected and compared more than 4,000 data such as tax declaration, warehousing and fee source information, accurately identified 110 doubtful data through the tax linkage analysis model, followed up the management in time, and recovered the undeclared water resource tax.

As a "small tax", the tax obligation of water resource tax is easily ignored. Under the trend of multi-department data communication and sharing tax collection and management, tax authorities can find abnormal data in time by comparing indicators such as water displacement, compensation for soil and water conservation, operating income and so on, and then screen out tax-related doubts. Coal enterprises should pay attention to the tax obligation of water resources tax, make clear tax basis, make accurate tax returns, and avoid the situation of unpaid or underpaid taxes.

II. The coal sales link: the risk of false opening and tax evasion should be paid attention to.

In the purchase and sale process, the coal industry has been selling without tickets for a long time, which makes it impossible for coal trading enterprises to obtain invoices for VAT input deduction and income tax pre-tax deduction when purchasing coal; However, in the transportation link, the individual drivers who actually carried the goods did not issue transport invoice to the coal trading enterprises, which led to the problem of recording them without tickets. In order to cope with the above difficulties and reduce operating costs, some coal trading enterprises add a third-party entity in the purchase and sale chain and obtain invoices from it. However, in the course of business development, problems such as capital return and business operation not conforming to the common sense of trading may lead to the risk of false opening, tax evasion and tax evasion, which may trigger tax payment, fines and even criminal liability risks.

In view of the problems of coal enterprises' false invoicing and tax evasion, a city tax bureau established an invoice chain supervision system, formulated eight invoice risk analysis methods, strengthened the supervision of invoices in the whole process of coal industry, and timely checked and found out and blocked tax-related risks such as false invoicing, underpayment of taxes and fraudulent enjoyment of preferential tax policies for small-scale enterprises. In practice, abnormal indicators related to invoices include abnormal consumption changes in enterprise billing information, the issuance of invoices with consecutive numbers, a large number of invalid red ink after the issuance of invoices, or negative data in enterprise VAT tax returns, and inconsistent goods purchased and sold. The tax authorities scan suspects based on the basic data of the invoice ledger system and risk indicators, lock tax-related suspects and conduct risk screening.

In addition, in practice, some coal enterprises set up their own sales companies or sell coal in cash, so the sales price is arbitrary, and the price of sales invoices may be far less than the actual sales price, which leads to the loss of national tax revenue. In view of whether the sales price of coal enterprises is reasonable, a city tax bureau establishes a coal invoice price monitoring system, analyzes the quantity and price of coal commodities purchased by various enterprises in the city on a monthly basis and publishes the fair price of coal sales on a monthly basis. The competent tax authorities analyze and compare the invoiced prices of coal enterprises within their jurisdiction according to the fair price, and timely verify whether there are tax-related risks for enterprises with invoice prices lower than the fair price.

Therefore, in coal sales, tax-related risks such as false invoicing and tax evasion are high. Coal enterprises should issue and deduct invoices based on the actual situation of business development, and keep business information to prove the authenticity of transactions and the rationality of pricing, so as to prevent tax-related administrative and criminal risks.

III. The equity transfer link: the tax obligation needs to be clear and the taxable value needs to be fair.

It is a common trading mode in the coal industry to change the ownership of exploration and mining rights in the form of equity transfer. However, due to the difficulty in evaluating the fair value of intangible assets such as exploration and mining rights, some shareholders did not fully reflect the value of these intangible assets in the transfer price when transferring the equity of coal enterprises, which led to disputes over whether equity transfer price is fair and whether there are reasonable and justified reasons for the low tax basis. In terms of transfer, the income from equity transfer was obviously low and was required to adjust the tax payment.

At the beginning of 2024, a city tax bureau established a supervision mode of "data penetration+risk prevention and control+accurate service" for natural person equity transfer, and so far it has collected 121 million yuan of tax for natural person equity transfer. In the specific operation, through the analysis of routine data, the Municipal Taxation Bureau found that from 2020 to 2023, the frequency of the change of natural person stock rights of coal mining enterprises in the city increased by 167% year-on-year, but the increase of personal income tax declared and paid by the coal mining industry in the same period was only 46%, and the comparison between the two groups of data showed obvious abnormal fluctuations. In order to solve this problem, tax officials adopt "three screens and three cores" to screen doubts and deal with risks: first, screen the change information of industrial and commercial registration and verify the change data of natural person's stock rights; The second is to screen the financial statements of enterprises and verify the original data of owners' equity and paid-in capital; The third is to screen the financial vouchers of enterprises and verify the bank receipt of investment funds, stamp duty payment vouchers and paid-in capital accounting vouchers. Through the above screening, enterprises with tax-related doubts will be locked, and further verification will be carried out to urge shareholders to pay taxes according to law.

According to the provisions of the Individual Income Tax Law, the taxable income is the balance of the equity transfer income after deducting the original value and reasonable expenses of the equity, and the individual income tax is paid according to the "property transfer income". When transferring the equity of a coal enterprise, natural person shareholders shall confirm the equity transfer income in accordance with the principle of fair trade. In case of fair price and 0 yuan transfer, it shall be judged whether there are legitimate reasons stipulated in Article 13 of the Measures for the Administration of Individual Income Tax on Equity Transfer (Trial) (State Taxation Administration of The People's Republic of China Announcement No.67, 2014), such as the transferee is a legally binding spouse, parents, children, etc., so as to avoid being adjusted to pay back taxes and collect late fees due to taxable value's irrationality.

IV. Summary

Under the background of digital upgrading and intelligent transformation of tax collection and management, tax authorities rely on tax big data to strengthen risk monitoring and early warning, and accurately identify tax-related risks of coal industry enterprises. Enterprises in the coal industry should pay attention to the construction of tax compliance, correctly understand and apply tax policies and make accurate tax returns, regularly carry out tax risk self-examination, timely adjust business models and tax treatment according to tax-related risk points, and prevent tax-related administrative and criminal risks.