China set about levying taxes upon online merchants

[img_assist|nid=8620|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=66] All corporate entities or individuals in China having online businesses are required to register with the administration starting Aug. 1. The Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce (BAIC) obliges online businesses making profit from their sales in the Internet to pay taxes. This is not to be applied to people who sell or swap personal goods not for profit.

For a long time online retailers and merchants were free from taxation in China, mainly small groups or individuals. In several years a number of online shops which sell cosmetics, watches, consumer electronics, luxury bags, brand clothes and child-care products were opened.

In the absence of taxation imported goods were sold at reasonable prices and were welcomed by fashionable but budget-conscious customers.

Interestingly, but the BAIC didn’t get around to clarifying the nature of "personal goods" or "goods for personal use". Instead it shifted the responsibility to conduct disputes on goods for personal use or business not for profits on “courts or arbitration authorities.”