New rules have been issued by the Ministry of Finance and State Administration of Tax in their Cai Shui no.37 (Circular 37) regarding implementation of a 6% tax on local and freight charges from 1st August 2013. The majority of carriers including OOCL, Hamburg Sud, MSC, MOL, NYK, CSAV & CSCL have confirmed that they will apply the additional tax of 6% to all ocean freight charges which are prepaid in China.
This will affect any customers who currently are purchasing their goods on CFR/CIF basis from China, whereby their supplier is responsible for paying local and freight charges. It is therefore likely that these customers will see an increase to their costs from their supplier from 1st August onwards. If you would like to avoid paying this additional tax, and would consider changing your terms from CFR to FOB, please contact a member of our team who will be happy to quote you a competitive freight rate.
For customers who already use Global Container Services for their freight movements and are purchasing their goods on FOB terms, they are excluded from this additional tax as the freight charges are paid in the UK.
