Businesses in?Shanghai will be entitled to tax breaks if
they sign unemployed people on at least one-year contracts, labor
officials said yesterday.
The preferential policy involves reductions in companies' sales
tax, urban maintenance and construction tax, added staff training
and education fees, waterway engineering maintenance and management
fees and business income tax as well, the Shanghai Labor and Social
Security Bureau said.
The breaks will be granted according to the number of jobless
people the company hires. Officials did not disclose details of the
size of the tax breaks.
Employers will enjoy the preferential policy for no more than
three years for each staff member hired.
"The new policy actually expands the tax-break coverage and
encourages more companies to create steady job vacancies for the
jobless," bureau spokesman Bao Danru said in an online press
conference yesterday.
Previously, the city ruled that companies could enjoy tax breaks
only after the number of reemployed people accounted for at least
30 percent of their total staff numbers.
Removing the unemployed staff percentage requirement could not
only expand the beneficiary number but facilitate policy
implementation as well, Bao said.
Meanwhile, jobless people could continue to have similar
tax-break preferential policies if they start up their own
businesses, officials said.
The city pledged to create 500,000 positions for jobless people
in rural areas this year.
(Shanghai Daily June 2, 2006)