Reduce the burden on enterprises, rectify illegal charges and disclose the latest progress.
On December 21, the State Administration of market supervision held a special press conference. The press conference disclosed that since January this year, 98900 charging units have been inspected nationwide, and a total of 12.52 billion suspected violations have been found. The units involved have been urged to take the initiative to return 5.446 billion, that is, more than 40% of the illegal charges have been returned to the enterprises.
Yuan Xilu, director of the price supervision and Competition Bureau of the State Administration of market supervision, said that next year, it will continue to rectify enterprise related charges, reduce the burden on enterprises, further improve the system and rules, and eliminate the soil root of arbitrary charges.
utilities of water, electricity, gas and heating charge indiscriminately by taking advantage of natural monopoly
Since January this year, under the deployment of the State Council, the country has carried out a special inspection on illegal charges related to enterprises.
Nandu reporter noted that this national special inspection is the first large-scale inter provincial and regional cross inspection organized by all localities at the same time of comprehensive self inspection. Compared with previous years, it covers a wider area, mainly focusing on the fees charged by intermediaries, industry associations and chambers of Commerce, as well as the fees charged by airports, railways, ports, water, electricity and heating and other public utilities and commercial banks.
The latest data show that up to now, a total of 12.52 billion yuan of suspected violations have been found in China, of which nearly half of the suspected illegal charges in the field of water, electricity and heating account for 5.534 billion yuan, which is the “hardest hit area” to investigate and deal with arbitrary charges.
Chen Zhijiang, a first-class inspector of the price supervision and Competition Bureau of the State Administration of market supervision, said bluntly that these public utilities, taking advantage of their basic and natural monopoly special status, did not strictly implement the policy of benefiting enterprises and people in accordance with the regulations, and did not reduce the obvious but not the dark, which seriously hindered the transmission of policy dividends to end users.
According to the press conference, some enterprises take advantage of the natural monopoly to “force charges”, force users to accept their designated design and construction units, and charge users high material fees in project construction. Some enterprises set up their own projects and set their own standards for arbitrary charges, such as collecting the so-called “card supplement fee” and “water quality inspection fee” without authorization, collecting pipeline cleaning fee and maintenance fee in the heat price, and formulating lead sealing fee without authorization in the verification of measuring instruments.
It is noteworthy that in January this year, the State Administration of market supervision and other five departments issued the opinions on cleaning up and standardizing the charges of urban water supply, power supply and heating industry and promoting the high-quality development of the industry, which clearly abolished the unreasonable charges in six aspects. However, in the special inspection, it is found that some enterprises still fail to implement the policy requirements and continue to collect the fees cancelled by the government, such as capacity increase fee of heating link, pipe network construction fee, commissioning fee of telegraph installation project, contact fee and meeting fee of gas project access link, water and gas heat metering device fee, etc.
industry associations and intermediaries were named to collect money, which had a bad impact
In the process of checking the illegal charges of enterprises involved, the chaos of illegal charges of intermediary institutions of some industry associations has also been exposed.
Ji Xiaoling, deputy director of the price supervision and Competition Bureau of the State Administration of market supervision, introduced that some associations undertake registration, filing, evaluation and other matters entrusted by government departments. These matters were originally to assist the government in providing public services, but the association forces enterprises to join the association and pay membership fees before they can apply for these matters and take the opportunity to collect fees in violation of regulations.
If some associations carry out vocational qualification identification, and link the continuing education carried out by the association with vocational qualification. If they fail to participate in the training organized by the Association for a certain class hour, they will cancel their qualification at the annual qualification examination, so as to forcibly charge training fees.
Some associations collect fees through subordinate enterprises or enterprises run by the person in charge of the association. Some associations carry out qualification evaluation activities. The two companies run by the president collect annual inspection fees, training fees, audit fees, certificate fees and other fees, and transfer the fees of the association.
In addition, some associations did not comply with the provisions of strict examination and approval to carry out evaluation and standard recognition activities and did not charge fees. They renamed the evaluation and standard recognition activities as evaluation and ranking, and continued to carry out. In order to “increase trust” and “gilding”, enterprises had to participate and pay a lot of fees to the association.
Nandu reporter noted that previously, the State Administration of market supervision had issued typical cases and successively exposed 12 typical cases of illegal charges by industry associations such as China jewelry and Jade Association and Shanghai appearance and Environmental Health Association.
Among them, China jewelry and jade jewelry industry association carried out the evaluation activity of “Tiangong refined” international fashion jewelry design competition without approval. From 2018 to 2019, it collected a sponsorship fee of 3.438 million yuan from the participants through its subsidiaries.
airport railway enterprises exceed the standard, exceed the scope and repeatedly charge
In this inspection, the phenomenon of arbitrary charges in the field of transportation was also serious.
According to Zhang Zhengming, deputy director of the price supervision and Competition Bureau of the State Administration of market supervision, some airports and railway enterprises charge fees beyond the standard and scope. For example, some airports charge service fees such as aircraft cleaning beyond the standard, security inspection and passenger service fees beyond the scope, and some railway enterprises charge loading reinforcement fees and locomotive service fees beyond the standard.
In other airports, there are repeated charges, such as repeated charges for unaccompanied children, wheelchairs, stretchers and other items included in ground services, and some airports have charged freight and mail service fees, from which Trailer fees are separated; Some railway enterprises have already charged transportation operation service fees and separately charged moving turnout fees.
Some airports only charge no service, and charge cargo and mail service fees for flights with no-load cargo; Some railway enterprises charge special line operation fees and safety custody fees, but do not provide corresponding services. Some port yard enterprises charge sewage container fees for containers, but do not provide cleaning services as agreed.
Some airports have not implemented the preferential policies of takeoff and landing fees and parking fees, some railway enterprises have not reduced the service fees of railway special lines as required, and some port logistics companies have not implemented the preferential policies of reducing 20% of cargo port charges and port facility security fees during epidemic prevention and control, and still charge according to the original standards.
increase exposure, draw the bottom line for charging subjects, and encourage enterprises to actively protect their rights
It is the urgent expectation and requirement of enterprises to manage enterprise related charges and reduce the burden of enterprises.
Nandu reporter noted that in order to reduce the burden on enterprises, the Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the governance of enterprise related charges.
Last December, Xi Jinping General Secretary clearly put forward at the central economic work conference that “we should maintain the continuity, stability and sustainability of policies, maintain support for economic recovery, improve the tax reduction and fee reduction policies, and increase the vitality of market players, especially small, medium-sized and micro enterprises and individual workers and merchants”.
On January 20 this year, Premier Li Keqiang made arrangements at the executive meeting of the State Council for the national special inspection on illegal charges related to enterprises. This year’s government work report also stressed once again: “we should strictly control the unreasonable growth of non tax income, strictly punish arbitrary charges, fines and apportionments, do not disturb the people and fish for profits, and let market players operate at ease and move forward with light clothes”.
Behind the fact that China attaches great importance to the rectification of arbitrary charges related to enterprises is the downward pressure on the economy.
Yuan Xilu, director of the price supervision and Competition Bureau of the State Administration of market supervision, introduced that this year’s international economic situation is complex, and China’s economic development faces many challenges, such as the impact of the rise in the prices of bulk commodities such as coal and iron ore, the rise in the cost of the global shipping market, and the impact of the epidemic on the demand of the Chinese market and the international market. “In this context, the use of administrative power, administrative influence, special market dominant position and industry influence, some arbitrary administrative charges and some arbitrary operating and service charges will undoubtedly add to the snow for the production, operation, survival and development of enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises.”
In difficult years, there are extraordinary measures. It is against this background that the country launched the special rectification of arbitrary charges related to enterprises.
To deal with arbitrary charges by enterprises, we should not only address the symptoms and solve the prominent problems perplexing the development of market subjects, but also address the root causes and eliminate the soil root causes of arbitrary charges from the system and rules.
The press conference disclosed that during the national inspection, it was found that there were not only problems of policy non implementation and distortion, but also problems of unclear rules, imperfect policies and inadequate reform.
The General Administration of market supervision said that in the near future, it will focus on the exposure of typical cases in the special action. At the same time, it will timely summarize the characteristics of violations, strengthen the law popularization and exposure, and draw the bottom line for the charging subjects implementing the policy.
Ji Xiaoling also said that encouraging enterprises to actively safeguard their rights can provide clues to the State Council’s “Internet plus” inspection platform, General Administration’s 12315 platform and the 12345 platforms of various governments. It also suggests that enterprises should be clear about the objects of complaints and complaints when reporting complaints, leaving an effective way of linking up, uploading relevant evidence materials, and explaining the specific circumstances of their legitimate rights and interests being damaged. “In this way, we can be targeted in governance and better help enterprises solve problems.”
(Southern Metropolis Daily)
