BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) – The Ministry of Finance and State Administration of Taxation have jointly issued a circular on taxation exempting locally-incorporated foreign banks from certain taxes, the official Xinhua news agency reported.Xinhua said the circular covers business tax, value-added tax, corporate income tax, stamp tax, and real estate transaction tax.The circular relates to the Regulations on Foreign-funded Banks issued in November 2006, which allow the incorporation in China of foreign banks and the transformation of their branches as wholly-owned foreign banks on the mainland.In the process of transformation, the circular says, the transfer of property rights and equities from a former bank branch to the transformed wholly-owned foreign bank is exempted from business and value-added taxes, according to Xinhua.A transformed wholly-owned foreign bank should continue to enjoy tax holidays which the former bank branch had enjoyed. If the tax holidays expire before the branch’s full transformation, the new wholly-owned foreign bank will cease to enjoy such benefits, according to the circular.
