CHINA: Tsingtao faces tax demand - report

By just-drinks.com editorial team | 16 July 2007

Tsingtao Brewery has been hit by a demand for unpaid taxes, while at the same time beginning production at a new facility in China.

The brewer has been the subject of local reports today (16 July), claiming that it owes around double the tax it has paid since 1998. Tsingtao was granted a reduced tax rate of 15% in 1993, as part of an incentive programme to encourage Chinese companies to list overseas, the South China Morning Post has said. Specific figures were not disclosed.

But Tsingtao has since been informed that the concession should have ended in 1998, and that it should have been liable to a tax rate of 33% from that time onwards.

"The tax authority has to be consistent," a spokesperson for Tsingtao was cited as telling the paper. "We paid this tax rate every year and no one asked us to stop paying the special rate until last month."

Meanwhile, Tsingtao has confirmed that production at its Yulin plant in Shaanxi Province began last week. The facility, located in the north of the province, is reported to have an annual production capacity of 1m hectolitres.

Sectors: Beer & cider