Nanxun tax office backs elevator industry's smart manufacturing upgrade

Nanxun in Huzhou is known as China's elevator town and makes about a tenth of the country's complete elevators, and it is now moving from manufacturing toward smart manufacturing. Inside one maker's smart manufacturing centre, flexible sheet-metal lines, robotic welding and smart coating lines run continuously while automated guided vehicles move around the plant, with parts going from processing and inspection to assembly and packing largely untouched. Because an elevator project spans long cycles from scheduling and shipping to installation and warranty, the company found invoicing and tax management complex, so the tax office moved tax reviews ahead of contract signing, cutting tax risk on a single project by more than 15 percent. The Nanxun tax office also uses tax big data to build dedicated profiles for elevator firms and a service team that pushes policies such as accelerated depreciation, R&D expense deductions and VAT credit refunds one by one. At a motor maker where R&D spending exceeds 5 percent of revenue, commingled R&D and production costs nearly jeopardised its high-tech enterprise status; after the tax office flagged the risk, the company set up proper auxiliary ledgers and internal controls. For exporters, the tax office explains risks at each step of contracting, customs declaration and refund.