At the beginning of 2026, the cross-border e-commerce industry will usher in the most stringent tax supervision cycle in history.
DAGON TAX Qianhai Office focuses on cross-border taxation and provides global companies with tax-related services such as non-resident investments in China and Chinese companies going overseas.
However, the current tax issues in the cross-border e-commerce industry have become increasingly prominent.
A cross-border e-commerce company in Xiamen in 2021 –
During 2022, the cross-border export amount was as high as 228 million yuan, while the tax declaration income during the same period was only 2,000 yuan, an income difference of more than 100,000 times.
In addition, the company received 1.0542 million yuan in cross-border e-commerce logistics subsidies but did not make any tax returns.
In the face of repeated reminders from the tax authorities, the company refused to cooperate and the legal person fled and lost contact. The tax authorities were eventually officially classified as tax evasion.
The total amount of back taxes, late fees and fines is 10.78 million yuan, and the relevant responsible persons are facing jail time on suspicion of tax evasion.
According to Article 63 of the Tax Collection and Administration Law, those who make false declarations or refuse to declare, resulting in non-payment or underpayment of taxes, constitute tax evasion, and will be subject to tax recovery, late payment fees, and a fine of 0.5 to 5 times; if the amount of tax evasion is huge and accounts for more than 30% of the tax payable, Article 201 of the Criminal Law will be triggered, and the maximum penalty is 7 years’ imprisonment and a fine.
Not only that, in March, in Shenzhen, Changsha, Hangzhou and other cross-border seller gathering places, many sellers received calls from the tax bureau and directly contacted legal persons and financial managers to verify sales revenue and declaration data one-on-one, releasing a strong signal of tightening supervision.
On March 27, 2026, Amazon sent the 2025 Q4 China tax report to a large number of sellers. This submission is no longer limited to domestic entities. Hong Kong companies and U.S. company stores holding Chinese identity cards are fully covered.
According to the State Council Order No. 810, “Regulations on the Submission of Tax-Related Information by Internet Platform Enterprises,” overseas platforms such as Amazon are required to submit Chinese seller identity information, transaction data, income and expense details to the Chinese tax authorities on a quarterly basis. The scope of reporting is based on the identity of the actual controller as the core basis.
This marks the official end of the era of relying on offshore shells to isolate tax risks.
Data reporting has undergone disruptive changes. The coverage is penetrating, and overseas shell entities are no longer a “safe haven”; the granularity has been fully upgraded, from coarse-caliber sales to order-level details; the regulatory logic has changed, from “enterprise independent declaration” to “platform data direct connection + multi-department cross-verification”.
A large number of Hong Kong and American entities that sellers spent heavily to establish have no real operations and cannot achieve risk isolation. The tax avoidance model that relied on “profit interception by overseas entities, private collection, and extracorporeal circulation” in the past has no room for survival.
The current regulatory landscape has formed a new pattern. The core rules emphasize substance over form, the entire chain of data is closed, and platforms have legal reporting obligations.
Cross-border e-commerce companies should immediately stop high-risk operations, conduct comprehensive self-examination of data, return to the essence of compliance, and reconstruct the tax structure.
Xiamen’s tax evasion case worth tens of millions of dollars and Amazon’s overseas entities were reported to each other, announcing the end of the era of barbaric growth of cross-border e-commerce and regulatory arbitrage.
Only by facing up to the regulatory trend, comprehensively sorting out accounts, standardizing declarations, and strengthening the structure can enterprises maintain stability and long-term success in the global market.
