Singles Day parcel boom creates tax loophole headache for Customs offices

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Tomorrow is Singles’ Day, China’s answer to Valentine’s Day and chosen for its 11.11. date. While the west talks of high parcel volumes for Black Friday or Cyber Monday, Singles’ Day is in fact the biggest online shopping day in the world. But that has led to “some unscrupulous industry participants” under-valuing packages in order to avoid Customs duty, a practice that provides incentives for freight forwarders also to under-report or break up parcels, according to the South China Morning Post.