A pilot tax reduction scheme replacing turnover tax with value added tax (VAT) exempted 140.2 billion yuan (23 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013, China's taxation authority said on Thursday.

The State Administration of Taxation said that 2.7 million taxpayers involved in transportation and modern service businesses had applied for the scheme as of the end of last year.

The VAT reform is part of China's structural tax reduction package, which is aimed at easing the taxation burden for enterprises, especially small ones.

China started piloting VAT reform in transportation and modern service sectors in January 2012 in Shanghai, and expanded the reform in the two sectors to the whole nation last August. Endi