In March 2025, the Third Inspection Bureau of Beijing Municipal Taxation Bureau announced a typical penalty case: a chain restaurant enterprise in Chaoyang District was fined 128,000 RMB for "failing to declare enterprise income tax on time for 3 consecutive months". It is worth noting that the main parties involved included a limited company and two individual business households -Even for self-employed people who run small businesses, late filing is no longer a trivial matter that can be solved by paying a fine.The
Recently, Beijing tax bureaus are carrying out the "Special Action to Improve Filing Quality", and the late filing rate of cash flow sensitive industries such as catering and retail has increased by 18% year-on-year.Why are catering enterprises prone to stepping into the pit? What are the consequences of late filing?

I. Case restoration: from "forgetting to report" to "tens of thousands of dollars in fines"

01 Business background

The enterprise in question is Beijing "Old Lane Kou Catering" (a pseudonym), founded in 2022, which has: a limited liability company (head office, registered in Chaoyang District); two individual industrial and commercial enterprises (branches, located in Haidian and Fengtai); its main business is home-cooked takeaway and dine-in, with a revenue of about 4.2 million yuan in 2025, and a workforce of 35 employees. People.

02 Facts of violation

corporate income tax: Limited has not filed its advance filing for the 3rd quarter of 2025 (due October 23, 2025) and its remittance filing for the year 2025 (due May 31, 2026) as scheduled;VAT and surcharges: None of the three subjects has filed a VAT return for November and December 2025 (small taxpayers file quarterly returns with a deadline of January 15 of the following year);personal tax withholding: Failure to file employee wage and salary tax returns for October-December 2025 (involves 12 employees with a total of $8,600 in taxes to be withheld).

03 Penalty outcomes

According to Articles 62 and 32 of the Tax Collection and Management Law:Recovery of taxes: Corporate income tax (prepayment underpayment of $12,000 + remittance of $86,000 in the March quarter of 2025) + VAT and surcharges ($18,000) + personal tax ($0.86 million), totaling $124.6 million;overdue fine: A daily charge of five ten thousandths of one percent of the late tax is added from the date of delay to the date of payment (approximately $0.34 million);fine (monetary): A fine of $2,000 for limited companies (for late filing) and $1,000 each for individual businesses ($2,000 in total);Total: $124,600 + $0.34 million + $0.02 million = $130,000(Rounded to the nearest $128,000 in the text).
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Second, catering enterprises late declaration "high incidence of minefield"

Why do catering enterprises always fall into trouble in filing? Combined with the risk tips from the tax bureaus in different districts of Beijing, there are 4 main common reasons:

01 "Cash-flow-first" thinking: business first, tax return forgotten

Catering industry cash flow turnover fast (food purchases need cash, rent paid monthly), many bosses are used to "earn money to pay for goods first, the tax thing at the end of the month to say. Beijing Fengtai District, a noodle shop owner frankly: "peak season one day flow of more than ten thousand, which remember the beginning of the month to report taxes?"

02 "Multiple management" of branches: disconnect between head office and branch office declarations

Chain restaurants often have the situation of "headquarter keeping accounts and branch stores not managing accounts". In the case, the VAT declaration of the Haidian branch (an individual business) was handled by a part-time accountant, but the accountant left the company without handing over the accounts in a timely manner, which led to the omission of the declaration for two consecutive months.

03 "Zero declaration" misunderstanding: think that no invoices do not need to be reported

Many catering enterprises think that "no invoice in the month means zero income, no need to declare". However, according to the tax law, even if the income is zero, as long as you have applied for tax registration, you have to make "zero declaration" (you have to fill out the "VAT Declaration Form (for small-scale taxpayers)" in the e-Tax Bureau and save and submit it) on a regular basis. A milk tea store in Dongcheng District, Beijing, was labeled by the system as an "abnormal household" because it had not made zero declarations for six consecutive months.

04 Lack of timely policy updates: tax exemptions mixed up

In 2026, the preferential VAT policy for small-scale taxpayers in Beijing was "monthly sales of less than 100,000 yuan (quarterly sales of less than 300,000 yuan) are exempted from VAT", but some enterprises mistakenly remembered it as "monthly sales of 150,000 yuan", which resulted in the overage not being declared in time. In this case, the sales of Fengtai branch in December 2025 amounted to 120,000 RMB (including tax), and the boss thought that there was no need to report if the sales did not exceed 150,000 RMB, but in fact, he should pay 1,188 RMB of VAT at the rate of 1%.
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Third, the path of compliance: catering enterprises to declare "pit guide"

In view of the characteristics of the catering industry, the Beijing Tax Bureau has given the practical advice of "3 tools + 2 nodes":

01 Using the "filing calendar": double reminders on cell phones

• Log in to "Beijing e-Tax Bureau - My Reminders" and subscribe to the "Notification of Filing Deadline" (the deadline for the current month's tax is pushed out before the 5th of each month);
• At the same time, "Beijing Tax Service No." is bound to WeChat, and the pop-up window of "countdown to declaration" is enabled (supporting customized tax reminder).

02 Branch "ledger management": avoiding the "unclaimed"

• Individual business outlets need to designate a person (such as store manager) responsible for reporting, and headquarters financial synchronization "reporting password";
• Before the 5th day of each month, the finance department of the headquarter will check the declaration status of all branches (green color is declared, red color is undeclared) through the "E-Tax Bureau - One-family Inquiry".

03 "Zero declaration" ≠ "no declaration": operational steps to be memorized

The filing period needs to be completed even if there was no income during the month:① Log in to the e-Tax Bureau → ② Enter "I want to do taxes → Tax Declaration and Payment" → ③ Select the corresponding tax (e.g., VAT declaration for small taxpayers) → ④ Fill in the "sales" as 0 → ⑤ Click "Declaration" → ⑥ The system prompts "declaration is successful" and it is completed (no need to pay tax). ③ Select the corresponding tax type (e.g. VAT small-scale taxpayer declaration) ④ Fill in "Sales" as 0 ⑤ Click "Declaration).

04 Two key points: don't wait for the "last day"

• Middle months of the quarter (April, July, October): Focus on checking corporate income tax prepayment declarations (the deadline is the 15th of the quarter, postponed in case of holidays);
• Annual remittance period (January-May of the following year): Catering companies need to complete cost and expense summarization (e.g., ingredient purchase invoices, employee payroll) by the end of March to avoid errors in filing a pile-up in May.

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IV. Case of a community canteen in Beijing for rectification

Beijing Xicheng District "Neighborhood Cafeteria" (self-employed business, serves 3 neighborhoods), in 2025, due to the owner's hospitalization, did not declare VAT for 4 consecutive months. 2026 January was listed in the Tax Bureau as a "non-normal household", and was unable to issue invoices, which led to the cancellation of orders by 2 cooperative units. In January 2026, the company was listed as a "non-standard account" by the tax office and was unable to issue invoices, which led to the cancellation of food orders by 2 cooperative organizations.
Rectification measures:

1. A third-party accounting firm (with experience in the restaurant industry) is appointed to take over the filing of the report, and an "agreement on compensation for filing errors" is signed;
2. Enable the function of "automatic uploading of tax-control disk" to automatically generate sales data at the end of each day and synchronize it to the accounting system;
3. Join the "Westside Catering Tax Support Group" to receive weekly policy explanations (e.g. the new policy of "VAT exemption for community canteens" in 2026).

Effect:Since February 2026, the company has filed three consecutive months of error-free returns, and in March, it successfully applied for the "small and micro-enterprise social security fee deferral" policy to ease cash flow pressure.
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V. Conclusion

For catering enterprises, "on-time declaration" is not a "completion of the task", but the first step to protect the bottom line of the business - once listed as "non-normal Once classified as a "non-normal household", not only affect the invoice application, bank loans, but also may be "suspected of tax evasion" to face a more stringent audit.
Especially in the context of Beijing's promotion of "smart tax" (restaurant POS data has been connected to the monitoring system of the tax bureau), every flow of water is "running naked". Instead of recognizing penalties after the fact, it is better to set an alarm clock for filing, clear up the accounts of branch stores, and understand the tax exemption policy from now on.The cost of compliance is always lower than the cost of non-compliance
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