In order to promote the expansion of imports and consumption, better reflect the people-centered concept of development, meet the People's needs for a better life, and in the light of such major reform measures as the reduction of the value-added tax rate, with the approval of the State Council and the decision of the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council, import duties (commonly known as personal postal articles tax) on imported articles will be adjusted from April 9.

Personal postal articles tax is an import tax levied on customs duty on articles carried by individuals and delivered into the country by post, import value-added tax and consumption tax together. In order to maintain a level playing field in the market, the tax rate of each tax item should be more or less consistent with the comprehensive tax rate of the same imported goods that fall under the same category.

The adjustment includes two aspects:

First, the tax rates of tax items 1 and tax items 2 will be reduced from the current 15 percent and 25 percent to 13 percent and 20 percent respectively.

Second, the annotation of "drugs" in tax item 1 will be modified as follows: for imported drugs (currently including anti-cancer drugs and drugs for rare diseases) that are subject to the import value-added tax as stipulated by the state at a reduced rate of 3%, the tax shall be levied at the rate of goods tax.

Since the beginning of this year, the value-added tax rates on imported goods have been adjusted from 16 percent and 10 percent to 13 percent and 9 percent since April 1, while the value-added tax on imported drugs for rare diseases has been reduced by 3% from March 1. In order to directly benefit the majority of the people from the bonus of the value-added tax reform, priority has been put on the reduction of personal postal articles tax rate on daily consumer goods this time, and the tax rate on food and other goods that fall into tax item 1 has been reduced from 15% to 13%, a 13% decrease rate. Tax rate on textiles and other articles that fall into tax item 2 has been reduced from 25% to 20%, a 20% decrease rate. At the same time, in order to ensure that patients can actually enjoy the tax reduction bonus, and in line with the policy of value-added tax on imported drugs, the scope of drugs at a lower tax rate (goods tax rate) will be expanded.