Tax data indicates a strong start to the 15th Five-Year Plan period, with business activity, industrial upgrades, and green development all showing robust growth.
From January to June, the number of active business entities nationwide increased by 20.2% year-on-year, while the number of taxpayers filing tax returns rose by 10%. High-tech industries and the digital economy saw sales revenue grow by 15% and 8.7% respectively, accounting for a larger share of total corporate sales revenue.
Improving people's livelihoods and promoting development: The economy is moving towards reality, innovation, optimization, and greenness.
Tax data reveals four key characteristics of the economy's sound performance this year. First, it is moving towards reality. The share of industry, especially manufacturing, in overall sales revenue has steadily increased. Industrial enterprise sales revenue rose 7.1% in the first half of the year, with manufacturing up 7.3%. Industrial enterprises now account for 36% of total corporate sales revenue, up 2.2 percentage points from last year. Their equipment investment grew by 9.8%.
Second, it is moving towards innovation. The combined sales revenue of equipment manufacturing, information transmission, software and IT services, and technology services—sectors closely tied to new quality productive forces—accounted for 23.5% of total corporate sales revenue in the first half, up 2.2 percentage points from the previous year, showing a rapid upward trend.
Third, it is moving towards optimization. Value indicators reflecting efficiency have improved. Besides tax revenue, corporate profits have also seen good growth. In the first half, the declared profits of the nation's top 1 million key tax-paying enterprises increased by 12.8%, indicating continuous improvement in corporate performance.
Fourth, it is moving towards greenness. Sales revenue in the ecological protection and environmental management sector grew by 6.9% in the first half. Clean energy power generation, including wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear, saw sales revenue increase by 17.1%, representing 38.8% of total power generation sales revenue, up 3.8 percentage points from last year.
In the first half, tax relief policies benefiting people's livelihoods in areas such as elderly care, healthcare, education, and employment saw a year-on-year increase of 11.8%. A total of 126 million people benefited from special additional deductions for personal income tax, with tax reductions exceeding 320 billion yuan. The pilot program for occupational injury protection for workers in new forms of employment was expanded nationwide on July 1, benefiting 29.1 million people.
Tax cuts, fee reductions, and tax rebates under major policies supporting technological innovation and manufacturing development totaled 1.91 trillion yuan in the first half. This included 659.6 billion yuan for R&D expense deductions and technology transfer, 252 billion yuan for high-tech enterprise tax rate reductions, and nearly 1 trillion yuan for advanced manufacturing enterprises to support the development of high-end technologies and address bottlenecks.
Tackling "involution" and squeezing out "water": Achievements in correcting the "invoice economy" have been made.
The State Taxation Administration has strengthened its vertical management advantages to combat "involutionary" competition, unify tax policy application to prevent policy loopholes, and ensure fair and standardized tax law enforcement, eliminating regional disparities. These efforts have yielded positive results.
Focusing on tax incentive policies with large tax reductions and high risks, the tax department has developed positive and negative lists to ensure that policy benefits are accurately directed to compliant entities. This year, the "invoice economy" has been included in the rectification scope, with a 16-point positive list setting standards for compliant invoicing and a 28-point negative list drawing red lines for illegal invoicing. This aims to correct the "involutionary" competition arising from the "invoice economy."
Simultaneously, the tax department has updated its risk monitoring indicators to address disguised illegal investment attraction practices. In the first half, local tax authorities pushed provinces to abolish or modify 833 documents or contractual clauses related to illegal tax incentives for investment attraction, preventing market distortions caused by illegal tax rebates.
Over the past six months, the rectification of the "invoice economy" has achieved initial results, effectively squeezing out the "water" from invoicing data, accelerating the exit of "shell" companies, and correcting fraudulent trade. The invoicing amount of enterprises identified with "invoice economy" issues decreased by 37.7% year-on-year. As a result, the "tax content" per 100 yuan of invoices nationwide increased by 13.7% compared to 2025, improving the quality of the economy and tax revenue.
Ensuring fairness, protecting compliance, and balancing service optimization with regulatory oversight.
Since January 1, the VAT Law and its implementing regulations have been in effect. The new law has enhanced tax certainty, improved fairness, smoothened industrial chains, and increased tax filing convenience. In the first half, VAT revenue reached 3.87 trillion yuan, up 6% year-on-year. The number of newly registered general VAT taxpayers nationwide increased by 25.2% to 1.09 million, further strengthening tax fairness.
On June 30, the seventh annual individual income tax settlement was completed. Over 200 million taxpayers filed their annual returns, a 4.38% increase year-on-year. More than 100 million taxpayers applied for tax refunds, totaling over 150 billion yuan. For individuals with an annual income below 120,000 yuan, after deducting the basic exemption of 60,000 yuan, "three insurances and one fund," and special additional deductions, most are not required to pay tax or pay only a small amount. Over 70% of all filers paid no tax after settlement, and among those who did, over 60% were subject to the 3% tax rate, demonstrating the tax's role in adjusting income distribution.
This year marks the 13th consecutive year of the "Convenient Tax Service Spring Breeze" campaign, which has introduced a series of new measures to benefit businesses and individuals. The coverage of smart tax processing has increased to 85%, reducing the average tax filing time by 20%. Pilot programs for "pay-and-invoice" services in areas like parking lots, retail, and hospitality have improved consumer efficiency. The "buy-and-refund" service for departure tax refunds has been optimized, with the number of overseas tourists using it increasing by 366% year-on-year, and sales of refundable goods and refund amounts up by 69%.
The "Regulations on the Submission of Tax-Related Information by Internet Platform Enterprises" has been in effect for over a year. Nearly 9,700 domestic and international platforms have actively fulfilled their tax information reporting obligations. The quality and efficiency of platform reporting, as well as tax compliance among platform merchants, have continuously improved. In the first quarter, the amount of invoices received by small-scale taxpayers on platforms from upstream enterprises increased by 48% year-on-year, and the number of platform merchants filing tax returns increased by 37% compared to before the regulation's implementation, narrowing the tax burden gap between online and offline businesses.
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