There's no escaping it! Amazon submits tax data to its Hong Kong and US entities.

The isolation provided by "offshore architecture" is rapidly becoming ineffective.

In the past two days, the phrase "Isn't it said that overseas entities don't need to report?" has gone viral among cross-border sellers.

Many sellers revealed that all of their Amazon stores registered with Hong Kong or US companies received emails with tax data for Q4 2025.

Even if the entity is based in the United States, as long as the actual controller has a mainland Chinese ID card, no exceptions are made; the offshore structures that were previously regarded as "tax havens" by countless sellers are collapsing.

Amazon reported tax-related data for foreign entities in Q4.

Previously, after Amazon submitted its first tax data report in Q3 2025, many sellers breathed a sigh of relief, assuming that only domestic entities were within the scope of regulation, and that they could achieve risk isolation simply by changing their stores to overseas entities in Hong Kong or the United States.

This assessment has led to a surge in sellers registering overseas companies and changing the entity name of their stores.

But this wave of pushes in Q4 shattered that illusion.

Based on the emails received by the sellers, the push notifications received by stores registered in Hong Kong, the United States, and other overseas entities have titles and wording that are completely identical to those of domestic entities.

All of them explicitly mention that, in accordance with Decree No. 810, information about Chinese sellers must be submitted to the Chinese tax authorities.

The email message sparked heated discussions in the seller group:

"I just changed the store's entity to Hong Kong, and now I'm receiving this notification. All that effort was for nothing."

"I still received the Hong Kong entity that was changed in January."

"It is said that as long as it is a legal entity in mainland China, it will be reported regardless of whether it is an overseas entity."

"When the time comes, everything that's due will be provided. In Hong Kong, paper mail is the primary form of correspondence, so it may be sent to the registered address."

"Then changing the subject now is pointless."

...

Some sellers say that the regulatory logic has changed: the system no longer uses the company's place of registration as the criterion, but instead goes directly to the actual controller;

As long as the actual controller is a Chinese tax resident, even if the company is registered overseas and its store operations and supply chain rely on China, it will be identified as a "Chinese seller" and its business data will be reported to the tax authorities simultaneously.

Q4 Data Reporting Refinement

More alarming for sellers than the expansion of regulatory scope is the increasingly sophisticated upgrade in data reporting.

When Q3 was first reported, the data was still relatively rough, and many sellers found a huge discrepancy between the sales figures reported by the platform and their own calculations.

However, the data reported in Q4 was detailed down to the order level;

All platform fees, including FBA shipping fees, advertising fees, sales commissions, warehousing fees, and clearance fees, are broken down by site. The exchange rate is calculated for each order based on the median rate on the delivery day, and order details can be viewed in a single transaction.

Some sellers said that the difference in accounting has been greatly reduced this time, but a small number of stores still have discrepancies in their warehousing fees.

Specifically, this download includes two separate links, providing both a quarterly summary report and an order-level detailed report, i.e., general ledger + details:

Quarterly Summary Report

This is the Q4 general ledger view according to the platform's reporting standards, which includes summary data such as revenue, refunds, and fees for each site.

Order Level Details Report

Revenue details: Revenue and refunds are categorized by order.

Fee details: Fees for all types of platforms are calculated by site.

This also means that previously the tax authorities only had your sales figures, but now they also have a clear understanding of the core components of your costs, allowing them to accurately define your gross profit margin.

If your reported data deviates too much from this range, the system will directly issue a red warning.

Here's a reminder for all sellers: the tax authorities recognize the total income reported by the platform, not the amount you actually receive.

Calculation formula: Total revenue = Commodity price + Commodity tax + Freight + Freight tax + Gift wrapping fee + Gift wrapping tax - Promotional discount (Discounts are negative, and are deducted after being added together).

The tax data pushed by Amazon this time is based on the order delivery date, which has a time difference with the time when the payment is received. According to the usual practice of reporting payment, this is completely inconsistent with regulatory requirements and is very likely to trigger a data anomaly warning.

Compliance is the only way out

The era of unbridled growth and easy profits is long gone. Now, with customs, platforms, payments, logistics, and taxation all connected, there are no gray areas left for cross-border e-commerce in 2026.

For sellers, the most important thing to do right now is not to keep thinking about how to change the subject or find loopholes, but to take immediate action and focus their energy on compliance review of the entire process.

First, you must immediately download and back up the tax data pushed in this notification. The download link is only valid for 7 days, so please be careful to avoid it expiring and becoming unavailable.

Based on this, we will fully verify the data reported by the platform and the data declared by ourselves, correct the erroneous logic of declaring based on repayments, and fill the gaps in revenue accounting.

At the same time, it is necessary to organize all the documents such as orders, logistics, and foreign exchange receipts, establish a closed-loop ledger, and sort out historical issues such as zero declarations and data discrepancies;

Sellers should follow the standard declaration process and proactively complete compliance rectification. Rather than waiting for the tax authorities to come knocking on their door, it's better to handle things early and have peace of mind.

Competition in cross-border e-commerce has long since shifted from vying for traffic dividends to battling for compliance capabilities. Only by adhering to the bottom line of compliance can one achieve more stable and sustainable growth in an increasingly regulated industry.

This article is a user submission and does not represent the views of this website.

The copyright of this content belongs to the original author. Please contact the original author for authorization before reprinting. For any copyright infringement issues, please contact copyright@jaketao.com