Equitable

Liu Qiangdong, CEO of JD.com, China’s second-largest e-commerce company, has called for small and micro enterprises, both online and offline, to enjoy the same tax incentives because some e-traders generally pay no taxes or are able to evade taxes, at a meeting co-chaired by the State Administration of Taxation and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce. But Jack Ma, founder of Internet commerce giant Alibaba, countered that the main problem is the inequity between large and small enterprises, and suggested small ones should keep enjoying the benefits of tax breaks. A director of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Pan Helin, said tax incentives are still needed, and China should track the capacities of small enterprises in a bid to improve the standards of business taxes, stressing that, rather than imposing more tax on e-commerce operators, offering offline tax breaks would be better and fairer.