On the afternoon of November 20, 2019, Mr. Zhang Zhiyong, President of the China International Taxation Research Institute (CITRC) gave a special lecture tilted Frontier Insights on Taxation and Finance to UCASS postgraduates of year 2019 majoring Taxation. As a renowned expert in international taxation, Mr. Zhang is also the former Deputy Commissioner of the State Taxation Administration. Associate Prof. Li Weiren, Deputy Dean of the School of Public Policy and Management of UCASS, joined and chaired the event.

Under the title ofEvolution on International Tax Rules and Multilateral Cooperation Mechanisms,Mr. Zhang’s presentation came in four components: 1) Base Erosion and Profit Shifting(BEPS): Action Plan and Digital Economy; 2) Conventional rules and reforms; 3) Consensus-based multilateral cooperation on mutual administrative assistance; 4) The Belt and Road Initiative Tax Administration Cooperation Mechanism (BRITACOM).

By tapping into the G20 international tax reform, Mr. Zhang explained the three main pillars of the re-write of rules: Tax Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, and Common Reporting Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (CRS), with a particular focus on the representative 15-point action plan as part of BEPS to respond to challenges of the digital economy. He then further demonstrated how enterprises of the new era have emerged and evolved into companies like Apple and Byte Dance, and challenges arise thereof to the international tax rules due to mismatch between where profits are taxed and where values are generated. These are attributable to the characteristics of digital economy, such as cross-border operations without physical presence, accumulation of market value and data based on intangible assets and user participation/ synergies with IP.

With insightful quotes and witty remarks, the speaker’s thorough overview of the tax realities in China and beyond was warmly received by the audience, with constant bursts of applause. As the former Deputy Director of the Tax?Science and Research?Institute under State Taxation Administration and an academic supervisor of the UCASS Master Program on Taxation , Mr. Jin Dongsheng spoke highly of the lecture and offered his comments.