Promote asset securitization and promote the development of housing rental market

China's existing decentralized leasing with individual housing leasing as the main body has outstanding problems such as scattered housing and difficult management. It is a feasible way to promote asset securitization and promote the development of housing rental market.

With the rapid development of urbanization in China, housing leasing has become an important means to solve the housing problems of new urban residents and low-and middle-income people. In large and medium-sized cities, the contradiction between the growth of housing rental demand and the development of housing rental market is still very prominent, which has become an important issue affecting the sustainable development of cities.

The existing decentralized leasing with individual housing leasing as the main body in China has outstanding problems such as scattered housing and difficult management, and the standardization of leasing agents needs to be further improved. Tax issues involve the financing of institutional leasing, the acquisition, renovation and operation of houses or projects. At present, there are many policy bottlenecks to be broken through. This is a feasible way to promote the development of asset securitization and housing rental market.

Real estate investment trust (REITs) is a kind of trust fund that collects funds by issuing stocks or income certificates and distributes the investment income of real estate property to investors in proportion. Investment targets are usually real estate projects that can provide stable rental returns. There are various types of basic attributes, including offices, serviced apartments, industrial logistics, hotels, retail and commercial complexes.

As a new structured financing tool, REITs can not only provide the real estate market with financing methods other than traditional financing methods, but also optimize the asset-liability structure of real estate enterprises, realize "asset-light" operation, enrich investment products in the capital market, and provide opportunities for many small and medium-sized investors to participate in real estate market investment.

At present, REITs-like products issued in China are different from mature markets in terms of transaction structure, tax burden level, income source of operation mode, income distribution mode and fundraising scope. At present, countries that launched REITs around the world have already issued special laws and regulations for REITs as early as 1 to 3 years before the first batch of REITs was issued. Up to now, China has not separately formulated relevant preferential tax policies for REITs products. Under the existing tax laws and regulations, if you set up REITs in the company system, you will inevitably encounter the problem of double taxation.

In view of this, we can do innovative exploration from the following aspects:

Deferred land value-added tax under REITs product structure.

It is suggested that land value-added tax should be temporarily levied on real estate enterprises that intend to issue REITs products. When the original owner transfers the equity share to the outside world, or sells REITs products to the outside world to dispose of assets or the equity of the corresponding project company, the original owner shall pay the corresponding land value-added tax according to the original tax basis.

The establishment of value-added tax simplifies the conditions for non-collection, and the operation link is still simply levied at 5%.

In the current practice, the real estate acquired by the project company through asset reorganization under REITs products is also regarded as acquired after May of 16, and the output tax rate is 1 1%. For all kinds of commercial real estate, such as rented houses, if the value-added tax is not levied according to the provisions of Caishui [2016] No.36, the project company will not be able to obtain the input tax bill, and its inherent cost structure will make it difficult for it to obtain enough input tax deduction during the operation period. In this case, the actual value-added tax burden of the project company will be significantly higher than 5%, thus reducing the income of investors.

According to the principle that substance is more important than form, it is suggested that for the real estate projects with the contract commencement date indicated in the housing construction permit before 2065438+April 30, 2006, after REITs are operated and assets are transferred to the newly established project company, the simple tax calculation method will continue to be applied, and the value-added tax will be calculated and paid at the rate of 5%.

In addition, we can also try to apply low tax rate to REITs projects in the people's livelihood encouraged by the state, such as rental housing, postpone the payment of income tax on the establishment link, exempt from stamp duty, and reduce the income tax on the operation link.

Centralized leasing and self-sustaining leasing are the development trends of housing leasing in large and medium-sized cities in the future. In this process, with the support of land, finance, taxation and legal policies and measures, I believe that the bottleneck encountered in the current development will be broken.