Editor's Note: In recent years, cases of online freight platforms being involved in the false issuance of special VAT invoices have occurred frequently. Platforms such as Zhejiang Shenshi Shengxin and Sichuan Mouyida (a certain Yida in Sichuan) have seen case amounts often reaching hundreds of millions or even tens of billions of yuan. Downstream enterprises are mostly held accountable for the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices or illegally purchasing special invoices, while convictions and accountability based on the crime of tax evasion are relatively rare. This article introduces a latest judicial precedent of the court where obtaining invoices issued on behalf of oneself from an online freight platform led to a conviction of tax evasion. Combining this case, it analyzes the legal characterization of truthful invoicing on behalf of others, the boundary between false invoicing and tax evasion, and puts forward tax compliance suggestions for the logistics and transportation industry, providing practical references for transportation enterprises to respond to similar tax risks.

01 Case Sharing

Zhu registered and established Company A. Since 2019, the company has undertaken a large number of transportation businesses. Due to insufficient self-owned vehicles, Zhu recruited individual vehicles from the society to undertake part of the business. As drivers of social vehicles could not provide special VAT invoices with a 9% tax rate, to solve the problems of input tax deduction and cost deduction, Zhu signed a cooperation agreement in the name of Company A with the online freight platform operated by Zhejiang Shenshi Shengxin Logistics Technology Co., Ltd., and used the platform to issue special VAT invoices on its behalf for cost deduction and tax deduction.

In specific operations, after Company A signed transportation agreements with multiple enterprises and completed transportation tasks using its own vehicles and social vehicles, it obtained data and information such as the five certificates (ID card, driver's license, vehicle registration certificate, road transportation certificate, and professional qualification certificate) of the actual carrier drivers, waybills, and weighing tickets, sent them to Shenshi Shengxin Company, and input them into the platform.

In terms of capital flow, Company A used returned funds to pass through the corporate account of Shenshi Shengxin Company multiple times, with a total fund payment of 71.41 million yuan. Each time Shenshi Shengxin Company received the funds, it deducted a service fee of 5.2% to 5.6%, and then returned the remaining funds to the employee account actually controlled by Company A, with a total returned amount of 67.38 million yuan.

From August 2019 to June 2020, Shenshi Shengxin Company issued 114 special VAT invoices to Company A through the platform company it operated, with a total price and tax of 71.41 million yuan. At the end of 2021, the local tax authority launched a tax inspection on Company A after receiving assistance materials from Zhejiang, and made tax handling and penalty decisions in August 2023. The tax authority determined that Company A used non-compliant special VAT invoices to deduct input tax, with a total tax evasion amount of 6.19 million yuan and a tax evasion ratio of 29.86%, and imposed a fine of 3.09 million yuan on Company A for its tax evasion. However, Zhu, the legal representative of Company A, failed to pay the back taxes, fines, and late payment fees, and did not file an administrative reconsideration or initiate an administrative litigation.

Later, the local tax authority transferred the case to the public security organ, which filed a criminal case against Zhu on suspicion of tax evasion. Zhu arrived at the public security organ after being summoned by phone, and paid the back taxes and late payment fees in installments under the legal education of the case-handling police. In May 2025, the local procuratorate initiated a public prosecution against Zhu for the crime of tax evasion, holding that Zhu, as a taxpayer, had adopted concealing means to make false tax declarations, evaded paying taxes of a relatively large amount, and the amount accounted for more than 10% of the payable taxes, so he should be held criminally responsible for the crime of tax evasion.

The People's Court of Hutubi County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region made the judgment (2025) Xin 2323 Xing Chu No. 70 on June 25, 2025. After trial, the court determined that Zhu used special invoices falsely issued by others to make false tax declarations, with a huge amount that accounted for more than 30% of the payable taxes. After the tax authority made a penalty decision in accordance with the law, he refused to perform the taxpayer's obligations. His act constituted the crime of tax evasion, and he was sentenced to three years of fixed-term imprisonment with a four-year probation period.

02 The Act of Truthful Invoicing on Behalf of Others Does Not Constitute the Crime of Falsely Issuing Special VAT Invoices

It can be seen that the aforementioned case is a typical case of invoicing on behalf of others under the circumstance of real transactions. In the end, the procuratorate brought charges based on the crime of tax evasion, and the court made a judgment based on the crime of tax evasion. This handling result is a manifestation of the correct application of the tax-related judicial interpretations of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the implementation of the criminal policy of the two institutions to restrict the crime of false invoicing, providing an important reference for similar cases.

On the other hand, in practice, after the issuance of the tax-related judicial interpretations of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, there are still cases where truthful invoicing on behalf of others (also based on real transportation business) is ultimately handled as the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices. This kind of characterization, which only focuses on formal features such as "superficial false invoicing" and "capital return" and ignores the background of real transactions, is obviously inconsistent with the facts of the case.

To accurately clarify the characterization of the act of invoicing on behalf of others, it is necessary to distinguish the core boundary between the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices and the crime of tax evasion. Paragraph 1 of Article 1 of the tax-related judicial interpretations of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate stipulates the "deceptive and concealing means" of the crime of tax evasion by way of enumeration, among which Item (3) includes the circumstance of "falsely deducting input tax". In cases of the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices, there are also situations where falsely issued special invoices are used to deduct input tax. Then, how to understand the "false deduction of input tax" in the crime of tax evasion and the deduction of input tax in the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices?

In this regard, the article "Understanding and Application of the 'Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases Endangering Tax Collection and Management' by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate" written by four judges of the Supreme People's Court, namely Teng Wei, Dong Baojun, Yao Longbing, and Zhang Shufen, points out: "The distinction between the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices and the crime of tax evasion. The most critical difference lies in the subjective intent: whether it is based on the intent to defraud state taxes or the purpose of evading tax obligations. If a taxpayer, within the scope of tax obligations, deducts more input tax to pay less taxes by means of falsely increasing input tax, even if the means of false deduction is adopted, the subjective intent is still to avoid paying or pay less taxes. In accordance with the principle of unity of subjectivity and objectivity, it should be convicted of the crime of tax evasion. If a taxpayer, beyond the scope of tax obligations, uses false invoicing to deduct tax, which not only evades tax obligations but also defrauds state taxes, then the part within the scope of tax obligations constitutes the crime of tax evasion, and the part beyond the scope constitutes the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices. This is a case of concurrence of two crimes caused by one act, and it should be handled in accordance with the principle of choosing the heavier punishment."

Combined with the actual situation of truthful invoicing on behalf of others, taking Company A in this case as an example, it did purchase transportation services. Even if Company A obtained invoices with amounts consistent with the actual amounts from a third party with which it had no direct transaction (such as the online freight platform in this case), the tax amount it deducted did not exceed the scope of its tax obligations. The use of non-compliant invoices to falsely deduct input tax actually resulted in the consequence of underpaying VAT, and the subjective intent was tax evasion rather than defrauding and deducting taxes. If criminal liability is to be pursued, it should be convicted of the crime of tax evasion rather than the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices.

To sum up, under the background of the implementation of the tax-related judicial interpretations of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the determination of the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices must adhere to the principle of suiting punishment to crime, and strictly examine the subjective and objective elements. In the case of truthful invoicing on behalf of others, the invoice recipient has real tax obligations. By obtaining special VAT invoices issued on behalf of others by a third party and using false input tax to deduct real output tax, although it does not comply with the relevant provisions of tax law, it only belongs to the situation of falsely deducting input tax. If it meets the prosecution conditions for the crime of tax evasion, it shall be sentenced for the crime of tax evasion.

03 The Act of Truthful Invoicing on Behalf of Others Carries the Risk of Criminal Liability for the Crime of Tax Evasion

This case clearly demonstrates the risk of criminal liability for the crime of tax evasion in the scenario of truthful invoicing on behalf of others. Article 3 of the Tax-related Judicial Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate stipulates: "If a taxpayer commits an act of evading tax payment as stipulated in Paragraph 1 of Article 201 of the Criminal Law, and before the public security organ files a case, after the tax authority issues a notice of recovery in accordance with the law, fully pays the back taxes, late payment fees, and fully performs the administrative penalty decision made by the tax authority within the prescribed time limit or the approved time limit for deferred or installment payment, criminal liability shall not be pursued."

It can be seen from the application logic of this clause that if a taxpayer actively communicates and negotiates with the tax authority after the tax authority makes a handling and penalty decision, reaches an agreement on deferred payment or installment payment, and strictly fulfills the obligations of paying back taxes, late payment fees, and administrative penalties in accordance with the agreement, it can legally apply this justificatory circumstance to avoid the pursuit of criminal liability. This is exactly the embodiment of the criminal policy of combining leniency with strictness in the judicial interpretation.

However, in this case, after the tax authority clearly made a determination of tax evasion and a fine decision, Zhu neither paid the back taxes and late payment fees as required nor claimed rights through legal channels such as administrative reconsideration and administrative litigation. He only paid the amounts in installments after the case was transferred to the public security organ for criminal case filing. According to the time limit of "before the public security organ files a case" in the aforementioned judicial interpretation, the payment act at this time has exceeded the applicable window period of the justificatory circumstance, and thus cannot prevent the establishment of the crime of tax evasion. It can only be regarded as a circumstance for lenient punishment considered by the judicial organ during sentencing.

This detail further confirms that even if the act of truthful invoicing on behalf of others itself does not constitute the crime of falsely issuing special VAT invoices, if the taxpayer fails to properly respond to tax handling in accordance with the law and misses the opportunity to apply the justificatory circumstance, he may still be pursued for criminal liability for the crime of tax evasion in accordance with the law.

04 Conclusion

For a long time, due to the inability of individual carriers to issue special VAT invoices, the logistics and transportation industry has been in a high-risk area of false invoicing and tax evasion. Although the rise of the online freight model has provided a way to solve the pain point of invoice shortage, it has derived new tax issues due to non-compliant operations. In recent years, cases of platform failures (such as Zhejiang Shenshi Shengxin and Sichuan Mouyida) have occurred frequently, and the judicial handling results of downstream invoice recipients vary greatly. The judgment thinking of this case provides a reference for such cases.

However, it should be clearly noted that not all acts of obtaining invoices issued on behalf of oneself through online freight platforms constitute the crime of tax evasion. The core lies in the matching of the authenticity of transactions and the compliance of procedures. In normal online freight cooperation, the platform should directly connect with individual drivers for settlement, collect transaction data such as waybills and weighing tickets, and ensure that invoice issuance is consistent with the actual transportation behavior and capital flow direction.

In contrast, the operation of Company A in this case deviated from this model. The company first completed the transportation settlement with drivers by itself, then transferred the funds to the platform account through capital return, and the platform returned the funds to the account controlled by Company A after deducting the service fee. This is essentially a false operation of "subsequent invoicing", which distorts the essence of the transaction and leads to the disconnection between invoice issuance and the real transaction process.

In addition, this case also sounds an alarm for transportation enterprises on how to respond to tax inspections. When an enterprise receives a handling and penalty decision from the tax authority, it should promptly exercise its right to remedy through administrative reconsideration or administrative litigation. This not only avoids missing the defense space due to passive delay but also clarifies the facts through legal procedures. If, like Zhu, an enterprise neither initiates a remedy procedure nor fulfills its tax obligations, it will easily lead the case to transfer from the administrative procedure to the criminal procedure, eventually triggering criminal liability for the crime of tax evasion. At the same time, it is reminded that when cooperating with online freight platforms, general logistics and transportation enterprises must adhere to the bottom line of transaction authenticity and process compliance, and avoid distorting normal business into false transactions. When facing tax disputes, actively responding through legal channels is the key to avoiding criminal risks.