A seminar held Wednesday for foreigners working in Shenzhen helped familiarize foreign taxpayers with Shenzhen's tax regulations and practices.

Sponsored jointly by the Inspection Branch for Foreign Business, an arm of the Shenzhen Local Taxation Bureau and the Shenzhen Daily, the seminar involved Shenzhen-based foreign businessmen and tax officials.

Holger Kunz, an executive of the German-invested TUV Rheinland Group, Itaya Keiichi, a manager from PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Swiss Daniel M. Spycher wanted to know more about China and Shenzhen's tax regulations. While praising the Shenzhen Daily for running a regular tax column, they said Shenzhen should have more information in English for foreigners. They also suggested Shenzhen have an English tax Web site.

American Mike Fields suggested all Chinese tax documents have English headers so that a foreigner could look up certain regulations when there was a need.

After being told that the Shenzhen government last year published a list of public projects to show where taxpayers' money had gone, Spycher, who is planning a business in Shenzhen on behalf of his Swiss company, said in Switzerland people paid tax to three levels of governments and that each government would explain the use of taxpayers' money with its own reports.

Two tax officials, Zeng Sihong and Wang Xiaofei, explained how Shenzhen's tax system worked and answered questions from foreign participants. Zeng said the city would make available more English information on tax in print form and on its Web site.

The speakers also compared the local tax system with systems in Japan and some Western countries.

A bureau source said nearly 200 foreigners had contacted the bureau about tax issues through the Shenzhen Daily after it opened a guidance column for foreign taxpayers in April last year.

(Shenzhen Daily April 22, 2004)