On June 2, the Beijing Municipal Tax Service announced that the country’s first online departure tax refund store has officially launched in Beijing, and the first batch of centralized departure tax refund points for the hotel industry in Beijing has also been put into operation simultaneously. According to a CCTV News report, the platform was jointly developed by the Beijing tax and commerce authorities along with an online shopping platform. When placing orders, overseas travelers enter their document numbers, date of entry, and other information online, and the system automatically generates an electronic tax refund application form. Goods are delivered directly to the hotel by courier, and travelers can complete the tax refund in one stop at the hotel’s centralized refund point, with the refund amount arriving in real time.
At present, the online departure tax refund store offers nearly 300 subcategories of tax-refundable goods in six major categories, including mobile communications, digital products, computer office equipment, and home appliances. Beijing has now established a service network consisting of 7 citywide centralized refund points, 51 “buy and refund immediately” stores, and over 1,600 departure tax refund stores, covering core business districts. Liu Li, director of the Second Tax Office of the Beijing Municipal Tax Service, State Taxation Administration, stated that this move expands the consumer tax refund scenario from offline brick-and-mortar stores to online shopping platforms. Beijing is also promoting nationwide mutual recognition of the “buy and refund immediately” policy, striving to enable overseas travelers to achieve “departure from a different location and nationwide tax refund.”