With the acceleration of globalization, the pace of Chinese enterprises and individuals globally expanded has significantly accelerated. For adapt to this trend, the State Administration of Taxation timely launched the "Announcement on Matters related to the Chinese Tax Resident Identity Certificate" (No. 4 of year 2025), through the four dimensions of reform of the tax service system, to build a more efficient and convenient with the consideration of interests’ protected for cross-border taxpayers.

1. Services have been comprehensively expanded
   
   The new rules make a breakthrough to include the owners of individual industrial and commercial households and investors of sole propriety-owned enterprises, extending the application subjects to all natural person operators. It means that when a storeowner travels to Southeast Asia buying raw materials, he or she can obtain a tax identification just as easily as a multinational executive.
   
   The extension of application scenarios is more groundbreaking, and "non-enjoyment of tax treaty" has become a statutory application for the first time. When a Shenzhen technology company set up a research and development center in Luxembourg, it successfully completed the EU anti-money laundering review with the certificate, saving three months from the previous approval cycle. This pre-arrangement effectively solves the compliance risks of enterprises in cross-border investment.
   
   
2. Services’ efficiency will be upgraded iteratively
   
   The digital transformation has achieved remarkable results, and the natural person Electronic Tax Bureau has added an online processing module to achieve "data solutions make less legwork". With the 72-hour speed-up mechanism, the efficiency of government services has achieved a qualitative leap forward.
   
   The intelligent transformation of certification documents is also worthy of attention. The dynamically generated taxpayer identification number is like a digital ID card, and the application of blockchain technology ensures that the information cannot be amended. The practice of canceling the signature but to an electronic seal not only guarantees the law compliance but also improves the speed of issuance, showing the government's determination to reform the system.
   
   
3. Cross-border tax compliance guidelines
   
   While enjoying convenience, taxpayers need to establish a three-dimensional risk control system. The first task is to accurately anchor the attributes of cross-border tax residency. Taxpayers must strictly follow the domestic legislative framework and bilateral tax treaty norms of China and the investment destination countries, systematically sort out the tax resident identification standards of tax subjects in different jurisdictions and identify the eligibility for agreement treatment through multidimensional comparison analysis. In view of complex scenarios such as the nested structure of transnational partnership enterprises and the interlocking of holding levels, or the special situation of dual/multiple tax resident status competition, it is suggested to take the initiative to connect with service agencies with cross-border tax professional qualifications, and build a risk firewall with the help of their compliance review mechanism and case database resources to ensure the legal validity and procedural legitimacy of identity recognition. Second, take a closer look at bilateral tax treaties, where an energy group misjudged royalty terms and lost tens of millions of dollars in tax. Finally, we must pay attention to overseas compliance. Before the merger and acquisition in Switzerland, a Shanghai pharmaceutical company started tax pre-communication half a year in advance and finally achieved zero obstacle merge and acquisition.

This reform marks China's international tax service has entered a new stage of precision and intelligence. According to statistics, the time limit of handling in pilot areas was compressed by 40% on average, and the incidence of disputes was reduced by 65%. For the growing cross-border economic entities, the new version of the "Certificate" is not only the sail of the escort voyage, but also the scale of the ability to measure international rules. In today's deep integration of the digital economy and globalization, such institutional innovation will continue to release reform wellness and help Chinese enterprises show stronger competitiveness on the world stage.