It's a commonplace that Americans and Westerners are the technical and business innovators, and that Chinese are good at imitation. But sometimes it's the reverse. I recently learned of a Chinese tax policy that I fear the IRS may want to emulate someday (if they are not already--I'm not a tax expert). It's come to my attention that when a foreign company owns a Chinese company qualified to do business in China, the Chinese Tax Authority (the analog of the IRS) requires the Chinese company to use Chinese-government approved accounting software which is directly linked to the tax agency's computers--every day, in real time, the company's financial and other data that is entered is directly accessible to and ported to the tax agency's system. Res ipsa loquitur.
Chinese Innovation
