Guangdong Yingyuan (Group) Co Ltd has become China's first company to have its licence to import and export recalled because of alleged cheating on tax and export rebates.
The Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation (MOFTEC) said the company was found guilty of dodging 4.8 million yuan (US$579,700) in tax and of defrauding the government of 18.8 million yuan (US$2.27 million) in export rebates between June 1999 and June this year.
MOFTEC recalled the company's licence to trade as a punishment.MOFTEC said recently that cheating on export rebates is just as bad as smuggling.
It demanded that in the coming annual examination of domestic foreign trade companies, great attention must be paid to companies which cheat on export rebates by pretending to be foreign trade companies.
MOFTEC also said it had punished five other companies for smuggling.
It said the Shandong Yuandong International Trade Co was found guilty of smuggling 11.41 million yuan (US$1.38 million) worth of polythene and dodging 3.68 million yuan (US$444,698) in tax.
The MOFTEC recalled the company's trade licence.
The other four companies were accused of dodging between 500,000 yuan (US$60,386) and 1 million yuan (US$120,700) in tax by smuggling and were ordered to stop imports and exports for six months.
(China Daily 12/19/2000)
