SHANGHAI, March 29 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai police busted a tax scam Wednesday that cost the state more than 200 million yuan (29 million U.S. dollars) in tax revenue, arresting more than 10 suspects.
The police found that the suspects counterfeited value-added invoices valued at over one billion yuan since 2013 and raked in around 10 million yuan in profit.
Two principal suspects, surnamed Xu and Dai, set up more than 10 companies to work on the scam under the guise of providing services such as consulting.
They charged 1 to 3 percent of the invoice value from clients who wanted the invoices to evade taxes, even though no transactions were actually made.
China has been pressing ahead with a reform plan to replace business tax with value-added tax since 2012 to ease the burden of businesses.