Editor's Note: In recent years, the flexible employment model has played a significant role in expanding employment and meeting the flexible needs of enterprises. However, the accompanying tax compliance issues have become increasingly prominent, making it a key focus of regulatory oversight. Policy trends and publicly disclosed cases in 2025 indicate that regulatory enforcement continues to strengthen, and judicial adjudication standards are becoming clearer. This article reviews typical annual cases, analyzes the core causes of risks, summarizes the main tax-related risks that platforms and employing enterprises should be vigilant about, and outlines the basic trends in current regulatory investigations and penalties, aiming to provide reference for relevant practitioners.

I. Review of Typical Cases in 2025: Flexible Employment Platforms Face Continuous Crackdowns, Impact on Invoice-Recipient Enterprises Persists

Case 1: Platform Referred to Judicial Authorities for Large-Scale False Invoicing
A technology company in Fujian issued a large number of value-added tax (VAT) invoices inconsistent with its actual business operations from October 2021 to May 2023, involving a substantial total amount of price and tax. After verification by the tax authorities, the case was referred to judicial organs in accordance with the law, implicating and subjecting many invoice-recipient enterprises to investigations. This case highlights the tax-related risks arising from the platform's own non-compliant operations.

Case 2: Flexible Employment Platform Referred to Judicial Authorities for Issuing False Invoices Worth 168 Million Yuan
A technology company in Heilongjiang fabricated market promotion services and issued 1,803 false VAT special invoices to downstream enterprises, involving an amount of 168 million yuan. The tax authorities imposed fines in accordance with the law and referred the suspected criminal evidenceto public security organs. Such cases indicate that non-compliant platforms primarily engaged in "selling invoices" are key targets of enforcement.

Case 3: Employing Enterprise Found Guilty of Tax Evasion Through Platform Conversion of Expenditure Nature
A coal power company in Xinjiang disguised some of its registered employees as "outsourced personnel" through a flexible employment platform, converting wage and salary expenditures into platform service fees. The company obtained nearly 100 million yuan in false invoices issued by Qingdao ** Human Resources Service Co., Ltd., thereby fraudulently offsetting VAT input tax credits and evading personal income tax withholding obligations. The tax authorities ultimately determined this constituted tax evasion, recovering taxes, late payment penalties, and imposing substantial fines. This reflects the common risks associated with the "fake outsourcing, real employment" model.

Case 4: Invoicing Under the "Enterprise-Brought Personnel" Model Questioned
A software company outsourced business to individuals and, to obtain invoices, collaborated with a flexible employment platform that disbursed remuneration to designated personnel and issued VAT special invoices. The court held that, in this model, the platform did not substantially organize or manage the service personnel, and its invoicing conduct constituted the crime of issuing false VAT special invoices. This illustrates that even if genuine services and payments exist, the legal risk remains high if the platform merely acts as a "pass-through" channel.

Case Summary: The above cases indicate that risks may arise from either the platform's active violating operations or flaws in the cooperation model between employing enterprises and platforms. The authenticity of business, whether the platform performs substantive management functions, and the alignment of fund flows with invoice flows have become key factors in determining the nature of the conduct.

II. Main Causes of Risks: Industry Characteristics and Internal-External Environment
(1) Difficulty in Obtaining Source Documents for Business Operations
The core of flexible employment platforms lies in integrating fragmented, massive resources from the supply side. However, these suppliers are often individuals or small-scale entities who generally do not issue invoices, cannot issue invoices, or provide non-compliant documents. This results in a lack of invoices at the source of transactions in the platform economy, making it difficult for platforms to obtain compliant VAT input invoices and corporate income tax deduction vouchers. This forces platforms to seek various methods to address tax burdens, leading to subsequent risks such as false invoicing and tax evasion.

(2) Internal Management Capabilities Need Strengthening
Some platforms prioritize market expansion and technological iteration during their early development stages, while internal tax compliance and risk control mechanisms remain relatively weak. Faced with massive, fragmented transactions, they lack effective audit mechanisms to ensure the authenticity of each transaction, making them susceptible to being used as channels for false invoicing. Additionally, with the implementation of new regulations such as the "Internet Platform Enterprise Tax-Related Information Reporting Provisions," platforms face significantly increased compliance costs and operational difficulties in data governance and information reporting, presenting challenges during the adaptation process.

(3) Large-Scale Cleanup of Local Fiscal Subsidies
In the past, the profitability of some platforms largely relied on tax rebates or financial incentives provided by local governments. As the state gradually cleans up and standardizes such policies, this portion of platform income has significantly decreased or disappeared entirely. Under profit pressure, some platforms fail to adjust to a healthy business model in a timely manner and may instead resort to fabricating business or inflating transactions to sustain performance, further amplifying tax and legal risks.

(4) Friction Between New Business Models and Traditional Tax Management
The business models of flexible employment platforms are characterized by multilateralism, flexibility, and fragmentation. In tax administration and judicial practice, there are sometimes differing interpretations of the platform's legal status in transactions and the nature of its income. These interpretative differences increase uncertainty in the platform's business operations.

III. Four Major Tax-Related Risks for Flexible Employment Platforms and Operators
(1) Platform Failing to Organize Employees Independently Deemed as False Invoicing
In recent years, many enterprises have restructured traditional employment relationships through flexible employment platforms, forming a tripartite model of "worker–flexible employment platform–employing enterprise." If the platform merely provides payment settlement and invoice issuance services in the business chain without implementing substantive recruitment, organization, dispatching, quality management, or bearing corresponding business risks for service personnel, its legal status and commercial substance as a "service provider" may be questioned. Judicial cases indicate that even if fund flows and business backgrounds are genuine, the invoicing behavior of such "channel-type" platforms may still be deemed as false invoicing.

(2) Misuse of Individual Business Policies for Illegal Tax Planning to Evade Personal Income Tax
Some platforms offer so-called "planning" services to high-income individuals, transforming their "wage and salary" or "labor remuneration" income into "business income" by registering as individual businesses in regions with preferential policies to apply lower tax rates. This operation is suspected of maliciously altering the nature of income to evade personal income tax. If the platform is deeply involved, it may be deemed an accomplice in tax evasion, bearing administrative or even criminal liability.

(3) Invoice-Recipient Enterprises Using Platforms to Retroactively Invoice Already Completed Transactions
In practice, it is common for employing enterprises and service providers to complete offline transactions and settlements, afterward "recording" order information through the platform to obtain invoices. Since this invoicing behavior deviates from the original transaction timeline and structure, even if the economic substance is genuine, it may be classified as false invoicing due to serious non-compliance with formal requirements, resulting in non-deductible input tax, non-deductible costs, and facing penalties.

(4) Failure to Fulfill Tax-Related Information Reporting Obligations Facing Direct Penalties
Under new regulations, platforms are obligated to verify and report tax-related information of operators within the platform. Failure to report, or reporting false, inaccurate, or incomplete information, will subject the platform to tax administrative penalties. In severe cases, platforms may face substantial fines, ordered suspension of operations for rectification, and restrictions on invoice issuance, impacting normal operations.

IV. Trends in Investigating Tax-Related Cases Involving Flexible Employment in 2026
Based on policy implementation and typical cases in 2025, it is foreseeable that in 2026 and beyond, tax-related supervision and judicial practices targeting flexible employment platforms and related enterprises will exhibit the following three trends:

(1) From "Controlling Tax Through Invoices" to "Governing Tax Through Data" for Substantive Penetration
With the introduction of new regulations on internet tax-related information reporting, tax authorities can directly obtain platform underlying data such as underlying transactions, fund flows, personnel activity records, and contract texts. Using big data, they compare and analyze the alignment and rationality of business flows, fund flows, invoice flows, and contract flows. Regulatory focus shifts from the invoice itself to the substance of the business, making traditional non-compliant practices relying on formal compliance or information asymmetry difficult to sustain.

(2) More Detailed Characterization Standards by Tax Authorities and Judicial Organs
For invoice-recipient enterprises (employing enterprises), if objective genuine transactions exist without subjective intent to defraud taxes, even if they obtain false invoices, the tendency is to pursue administrative liability for tax evasion.
For invoicing parties (platforms), business models using invoices as profit-making tools are severely cracked down upon. For platforms that issue large volumes of, systematic non-compliantinvoices externally, even if mixed with some genuine business backgrounds, judicial organs are more inclined to determine the crime of "illegal sale of VAT special invoices." This shift is primarily because the platform's large-scale, market-driven "sale" of invoices seriously disrupts the invoice management order. The crime of illegal sale of invoices more precisely targets this business model treating invoices as illegal profit tools, and its sentencing range is similar to that for false issuance of VAT special invoices, avoiding overly lenient penalties. The second-instance changed judgment in the Shen某 online freight transport platform case from "false invoicing" to "illegal sale of invoices" is a typical manifestation of this trend.

(3) Platform Primary Responsibility Reinforced
With the issuance of regulations such as those on internet platform tax-related information reporting, internet platform enterprises are explicitly assigned legal obligations to verify and report tax-related information of operators and relevant personnel within the platform. According to relevant provisions, platforms must ensure the truthfulness, accuracy, and completeness of reported information and provide relevant information such as contracts, transactions, funds, and logistics as required during tax authority inspections. This necessitates platforms to establish effective risk control mechanisms and bear basic review responsibility for the rationality and authenticity of transactions within the platform; they cannot be fully exempted from liability by claiming "ignorance."

V. Summary
Overall, the tax compliance environment for flexible employment platforms is undergoing profound standardization. For platforms, understanding and adapting to this trend is crucial. Future development will increasingly rely on genuine business scenarios, sound internal control systems, standardized financial handling, and professional tax management. Platform enterprises should focus on examining the core value of their own business models, building compliance capabilities as the foundation for development, thereby achieving healthy, long-term growth while serving the real economy.