Corporate tax cuts to ease burden for small enterprises

A series of new corporate tax cuts are expected to reduce the tax burden on small businesses by more than 100 billion yuan ($15.64 billion), the Ministry of Finance said on Friday.

An executive meeting of the State Council on Wednesday decided to increase the number of businesses eligible for a 50 percent reduction in their corporate tax.

The policy, effective through the end of 2017, will extend firms that are eligible for a 10 percent tax rate to those with an annual taxable income below 300,000 yuan from 200,000 yuan. Those above the 300,000 yuan threshold are levied a 25 percent rate.