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BEIJING - FIVE people in China were due to go on trial on Friday over the country's biggest case of making fake receipts for tax claims that were worth nearly US$150 billion dollars (S$211 billion), state media reported.
A factory in southwestern Guizhou province had churned out more than one million receipts worth 1.05 trillion yuan before police broke up the scam, Xinhua news agency said.
Five suspects were due to appear in Luoping County people's court in neighbouring Yunnan province on Friday, the report added.
'It is the largest case of making and selling fake receipts since 1949, according to the ministry of public security,' said Chai Jiaping, deputy head of the Qujing public security bureau, in Yunnan.
'The fake receipts that were confiscated could load two trucks.'
The fraud was uncovered when police found 128,300 fake receipts worth 18.7 million yuan on a coach heading from Guizhou to Yunnan last August.
This led to the discovery of the factory in Guizhou, where a further 400,000 fake receipts were discovered, the report added.
The factory has since been destroyed.
'The fake receipts look almost the same as the real ones. Consumers and even the tax collectors find it hard to distinguish,' said Tang Xiaozhou, Luoping's taxation chief.
'If put into the market, the national treasury would have lost more than 75 billion yuan in tax revenue.'
Mr Li Linjun, the state administration of taxation spokesman, said last month there would be a crackdown on fake receipts this year.
China's tax revenue rose 31.4 per cent in 2007 to hit 4.9 trillion yuan, but China has stated repeatedly that it needs to improve tax collection and make a bigger dent on tax evasion, which is rampant. -- AFP
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