The new payment policy landed, the "crisis" and "opportunity" of the catering industry

Image source @ Visual China

Text | Meal Alliance Research

Personal collection codes will be disabled, what is the impact on catering enterprises?

In October 2021, Chinese Min min bank issued [2021] No. 259 document, which makes specific requirements for bar code payment acceptance terminal, bar code acceptance auxiliary acceptance terminal, and collection bar code management, mainly involving three parts: the remote collection function of personal collection code will be limited; personal collection code is divided into commercial and civilian; and the collection code is divided into two categories: individual and special merchants for classified management.

In terms of segmentation, the personal collection code is restricted by changing the previous static code to a dynamic code, which needs to be updated frequently. For example, the personal payment code posted by supermarkets and restaurants cannot be used, and can only be paid face-to-face. In addition, merchants cannot use personal collection codes of payment systems such as WeChat and Alipay, and need to upgrade them to commercial collection codes.

The personal code corresponds to the personal account, and the commercial code is the public account. The former is a personal transaction, do not need to pay taxes; the latter need to pay taxes according to the turnover and net profit of the business or enterprise.

In addition, according to the collection code, the individual and special merchants are classified and managed, consistent with the above, aiming to clarify the payment use scenarios, whether it is for the payment behaviors such as borrowing me and sending red envelopes between individuals, or the sales payment under the main body of the merchant, the latter's account will generate rates, subject to the system supervision of the People's Bank of China, and it is also convenient to accept tax management.

As soon as the new payment regulations came out, it attracted strong attention. Previously, according to the "2020 Mobile Payment User Questionnaire Survey Report" released by the China Payment and Clearing Association, 74% of users use mobile payment every day. Obviously, mobile payment has become the main payment method used by consumers on a daily basis.

For individuals without business behavior, the landing of the New Deal may not have much to do with it, but it is crucial for merchants, especially for catering in the catering industry, where payment is frequent, because it is as small as buying vegetables on the street and selling a noodle will produce payment behavior.

Many merchants are anxious about whether personal codes can still be used; some people are worried that after the new policy lands, it will increase the difficulty of operation; some people are looking forward to the implementation of the new policy and the cancellation of the payment platform rate; more people are unclear about taxation, worried that the new policy will increase corporate pressure... Pulling away the fog of personal code use restrictions is actually a policy to guide businesses, including catering enterprises, to standardize their operations, and in the long run, benefit the country and the people.

How to correctly interpret the New Deal documents, whether the personal code is disabled, whether the collection code is commercially taxed, how to pay taxes, how much impact the New Deal will have on the catering industry, and how should catering enterprises deal with it...

A few days ago, Xu Wei, the founder of Beijing Caidede, the financial adviser of a number of listed and high-growth companies, and a special expert of the Restaurant Alliance Research Think Tank, made a guest appearance in the live broadcast room of the Restaurant Alliance Research Room to analyze and answer the hot issues that catering people care about in detail.

01 Can I still use the personal payment code?

The warm-up payment policy was officially implemented on March 1, starting in October last year. Many people are still worried about the daily inconvenience caused by the ban on personal codes, business difficulties and financial pressures.

The conversion of static codes to dynamic codes does increase the cost of use. Generally speaking, supermarkets, restaurants and even three or five restaurants of scale use the boss's personal QR code, with a "arrival", direct collection. Once changed to a dynamic code, the two-dimensional code posted at the cash register will be eliminated, and the consumer checkout is faced with one person and one code, which is not ideal and unrealistic in the real use process.

However, everyone is most concerned about whether the personal code can be used. It is true that mobile payment has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, whether it is primary school students buying stationery, the elderly buying vegetables, or even as small as eating a bowl of noodles in a restaurant, as large as business transactions, all rely on mobile payment settlement. If the personal code cannot be used, will it bring inconvenience to life?

In response to this problem, Xu Wei said that the China Payment and Clearing Association issued an enforcement document on February 22, which proposed that personal codes can still be used. In this way, in scenarios such as fruit shops, shopping and selling in wet markets that the public cares about, personal codes can still be used.

Catering people are generally concerned about whether personal codes can continue to be commercialized. "If you use a commercial personal code, you can upgrade it for free on a voluntary basis." Xu Wei said that after the upgrade, the collection code will not change, and in terms of classification, it has changed from a personal code to a commercial code.

In the process of commercialization of individual codes, involving two keywords, namely "voluntary" and "free", Xu Wei said that the commercial use of personal codes is a gradual process, the state will introduce preferential policies to guide the completion of this step, Alipay, WeChat will also successively launch the official adoption of free upgrades, as for the duration of the buffer period, it is planned according to the proportion of big data of the national merchant code.

"After upgrading the commercial code, does it mean that you have to pay taxes?" There are also diners who throw this question to the food alliance research.

"Definitely not immediately, but be prepared to pay taxes." Xu Wei mentioned that under the state of personal code use, the operating income of many restaurants and restaurant enterprises may enter the personal account and do not need to pay taxes, when using the commercial code, the business income enters the public account, and it needs to pay taxes.

As far as self-employed persons were concerned, the previous tax principle was to approve the collection, no need to make accounts, and have a fixed tax value. Nowadays, the approved collection or will be replaced by audit collection, catering enterprises with reference to sales to pay vat, with reference to net profit to pay income tax, which means that catering enterprises to retain revenue, cost, expense invoices, and develop a standardized financial management system.

Using a commercial code may be equivalent to paying taxes, which worries many restaurant people. In this regard, Xu Wei clearly proposed that there is no need to panic, in fact, the tax rate is very low.

For small and micro enterprises, the tax burden level is favorable to national factors. First, the state has introduced corresponding preferential tax policies, and the second is that the monthly income is less than 150,000 yuan, exempt from value-added tax, the annual profit is within 1 million yuan, and the income tax rate is 2.5%. Even if a mom-and-pop shop has a monthly turnover of 100,000 yuan, only a rent invoice of 200,000 yuan, the tax payment is up to 2500 yuan, and the salary of employees, the payment of water and electricity bills, etc. can also be deducted before tax, reducing the amount of tax.

In the model of directly operated stores under the headquarters, the directly operated stores and the store managers set up a partnership enterprise to pay internal dividends and pay taxes externally, such enterprises were originally the same as self-employed households, many of them abided by the approved collection policy, and it is very likely that they will be audited and levied in the future.

The tax level of partnership enterprises is born out of its revenue capacity, the revenue is within 150,000 yuan to enjoy tax exemption, the revenue is within 5 million yuan, the net profit is less than 1 million yuan for small and micro enterprises, the tax reduction and burden reduction policy of the beneficiary countries, in general, the real tax burden level accounts for less than 3.5% of the revenue.

Most importantly, whether small and micro enterprises or chained and branded enterprises meet the national tax reduction and burden reduction standards, they all enjoy tax incentives. Therefore, the personal code to commercial code, the impact of the enterprise may only be "too worried".

02 The underlying logic of the Payment New Deal

On the surface, the new policy involves the use of collection codes, but in fact, it is "numerical control of taxes" to make tax management more rigorous.

Enterprises that are just starting out, such as the scale of two or three stores, its business ecology is mostly roadside stores or shopping mall stores, the former is small, mostly self-employed. The latter is required to register the main body as a company when entering the mall, and such enterprises have simple accounts, may only account for the daily turnover, and there is no sense of standardized tax payment.

"Of course, there are also enterprises that regulate tax payment, and such enterprises have two kinds of portraits, one is a serial entrepreneur, who rushes to make the enterprise bigger at the beginning; the other has stepped on the pit and accumulated tax awareness with the help of experience." Xu Wei said.

The high-speed development enterprises with 300-500 stores in a year are based on the needs of the horse racing, beware of "backyard fire", some are gradually complying, and some are confused and wait-and-see.

For financing enterprises, they hold hundreds of millions of yuan of financing, carrying the expectations and pressures of rapid expansion, occupying the market, building brands, and achieving economies of scale, so the healthy development of enterprises is crucial. In particular, listed enterprises must publicly disclose their performance and disclose information to investors and shareholders. Among them, before the A-share listing, it is necessary to issue a "certificate of no illegal tax payment" to prove that the enterprise pays taxes legally. It can be seen from this that legal tax payment is a necessary condition for the listing of enterprises.

"When investors select projects, they observe their business model before a round of investment, and the ultimate goal of the company is to go public, so the B round of financing must be compliant." Enterprises delisted and merged by listed companies must meet compliance standards. ”

Legal compliance operation is the development trend and is also good, such as it is conducive to obtaining the approval of the capital and completing multiple rounds of financing; from the perspective of sustainable development and the ultimate goal of listing, compliance is an important part.

Xu Wei mentioned a typical case, a restaurant chain intends to go to Hong Kong IPO, need to be fully compliant with finance and taxation, but at that time, the profit margin of the enterprise was only 6%-7%, in the face of such a low profit margin, the management was worried that there was little profit left after compliance.

Sure enough, the net profit after compliance was reduced to about 3%. However, the management considers that if it wants to achieve medium- and long-term healthy development, fiscal and tax compliance is the only way.

Although the company experienced short-term pain, after "tightening the belt of the pants" to reduce costs and increase efficiency and seek a way out, the net profit increased to about 8% after a year and a half. The straw that tripping over the enterprise is not compliance with taxation, but only the lack of core competitiveness and management capabilities.

In fact, the "attention" of the catering industry triggered by the new payment policy is to guide merchants to use merchant codes and guide their income into public accounts, so as to comply with tax compliance and develop healthily. At present, the most difficult problem is not the lack of compliance awareness of catering enterprises, but the lack of how to start.

Like many mom-and-pop shops or four or five small chain restaurant chains, there is no accounting staff, all rely on the restaurateur or the hostess to calculate the accounts, the revenue all into the private card that does not need to pay taxes, after the personal code is commercialized, they do not know how to get taxed.

The inability to obtain invoices is the biggest pain point faced by catering enterprises. Under the leadership of ticket control taxation, sometimes enterprises cannot obtain invoices for raw materials, such as wholesale markets do not provide invoices, and vegetable vendors do not have the awareness of invoicing, or do not know much about them, which increases the difficulty of tax payment of enterprises. The difficulty of compliance also comes from the consumer side, in addition to high-end business catering, especially consumers in small restaurants rarely take the initiative to ask for invoices after meals.

"The adaptability of ticketed tax control and catering enterprises is not high, after the transition to the fourth phase of the golden tax, the state applied big data management to complete the gradual transformation from 'tax management by tickets' to 'taxation by numbers', reducing the difficulty of corporate tax payment." Among them, the capital flow data is also an important part of the 'number'. Xu Wei mentioned.

03 How do restaurant companies solve the problem?

In the face of the arrival of the new policy, how should catering enterprises be laid out?

In this regard, Xu Wei made three suggestions.

The first is to actively understand the relevant policies. Taking the new payment policy implemented on March 1, many people are worried that personal codes cannot be used, but after the release of the payment and clearing association documents on February 22, it showed that this was not the case.

In fact, the biggest problem of many people's anxiety about "whether personal code can be commercialized" is tax payment. Xu Wei clearly pointed out that after knowing the preferential policies of the state, it will be found that compared with the income of enterprises, taxes and fees are not as high as imagined, such as merchants with monthly sales of less than 150,000 yuan are exempt from VAT, and most stall catering policies are applicable to this preferential policy. If the monthly sales exceed 150,000 yuan, as long as the annual sales do not exceed 5 million yuan, the value-added tax has been reduced from 3% to 1% during the epidemic period, and the tax rate is very favorable.

Even for general taxpayers who exceed 5 million yuan, the VAT rate is only 6%, and the general taxpayer can deduct input tax by using a special ticket, and only pay the difference between invoicing and sales tax and output tax.

In addition, Xu Wei said that even if the approved collection is canceled, catering people do not have to worry too much, the method is hidden in the four sets of keywords of "sales, costs, expenses, profits", and the catering personnel are ready to match the real cost invoices and expense invoices that match the income, so that they can deduct income tax.

"Understanding preferential policies, learning tax knowledge, and preparing sufficient invoices are good strategies for layout." Xu Wei repeatedly mentioned that if enterprises want to run with all their hands and feet, they must eliminate their worries through compliance. In particular, the more enterprises that have impacted the first stock of a certain category, the sooner they carry out standardized taxation under the guidance of professional tax personnel, the sooner they can win the crown and achieve a soaring market value.

"Small and micro enterprises pay low taxes, listed enterprises pay taxes is the only way, compliance is of great benefit to the development of enterprises, it makes you have no distractions, focus on business." As Xu Wei said, the core of an enterprise is always the business.

On March 5, at the opening ceremony of the fifth session of the third session of the 13th National People's Congress, the government work report mentioned that a number of new tax incentives will be implemented in 2022, including halving the income tax on small and micro enterprises, exempting small and medium-sized enterprises from value-added tax, large-scale tax rebates on the amount of value-added tax credits, and increasing the proportion of R&D expenses plus deductions, which is said to save enterprises about 2.5 trillion yuan if the preferential tax policies are implemented.

It can be seen that the state has been actively introducing various preferential policies to help enterprises alleviate difficulties, focus on the main business, and consolidate themselves.

epilogue:

We are often confused about the unknown, and many times, there is only one step between us and the unknown. Everything is not only positive and negative, but also needs to be viewed with a dialectical eye, just like the hidden behind the New Deal is not a crisis but an opportunity.