Due to the scarcity of coal resources, each coal mine operates in a seller's market. As a result, coal trading enterprises and coal-consuming businesses often struggle to obtain sufficient value-added tax (VAT) special invoices during procurement. Additionally, given the prevalent use of individual transport capabilities in China's road transportation, the transportation costs incurred in coal buying and selling transactions cannot acquire adequate invoice documentation. Over time, this situation has led to challenges for coal trading enterprises and coal-consuming businesses in managing the associated corporate income tax and VAT burdens.To address these issues, many coal trading enterprises and coal-consuming businesses opt to obtain VAT special invoices through third-party channels, thereby triggering the risk of false invoicing. Currently, numerous cases of false invoicing involving coal enterprises have erupted nationwide. In the context of ongoing collaborative efforts by tax authorities to combat tax fraud, continuous upgrades and optimizations of the Golden Tax Phase III system, and the increasing intelligence of data-driven comparisons, tax and judicial authorities are managing invoices in a more real-time fashion.In response, coal enterprises should conduct regular self-assessments to promptly identify potential tax risks. Simultaneously, when dealing with ongoing cases of false invoicing, attention should be paid to understanding the nature of transactions from both the formal and substantive aspects.

On April 27, 2022, the criminal investigation into a coal enterprise, represented by Huashui Agency, suspected of issuing false value-added tax special invoices (with a total value of over 45 million RMB) was concluded. The X City, Y District Procuratorate issued a non-prosecution decision to the involved enterprise, stating that the evidence provided by the X City Public Security Bureau, Y Sub-Bureau, was insufficient to establish the crime of issuing false value-added tax special invoices and did not meet the conditions for prosecution. After nearly two years of defense work by Huashui lawyers, the case resulted in a non-prosecution decision by the prosecutor's office, receiving high recognition from the client. Due to reasons such as tax policies and industry characteristics, the coal industry has consistently been a hotspot for false billing cases, with high tax-related risks. This article summarizes and analyzes the specific handling of this case, along with its core legal issues. The aim is to provide useful insights for the judicial handling of similar cases involving enterprises suspected of issuing false invoices in the future.

The coal industry over the years as the country's important energy industry and economic pillar industry, is to promote the national economic construction of the cornerstone, the state has repeatedly used tax policy means of regulation of the coal industry, such as 2022 to strengthen the energy supply security and the implementation of the zero tariff policy on coal imports. At the same time, the coal industry is also the hardest hit by the outbreak of tax-related problems, and has always been the focus of tax audits, the state has repeatedly emphasized the strengthening of the coal and other key areas of tax-related violations of the crackdown, previously carried out by the coal industry to check the twenty-year action makes the coal enterprises on tax-related compliance to bring up "twelve points" of vigilance. In recent years, not only has the crackdown on the issue of fraudulent invoicing in the coal industry persisted, but the issue of tax evasion in multiple tax categories in the industry has also received the attention of the tax authorities one after another.