A: Stamp duty needs to be paid according to the loan contract.
According to the Notice on Printing and Distributing issued by the People's Bank of China (Yinfa [1997] No.216), the term "discount" as mentioned in these Measures means that the holder of a commercial bill transfers the rights of the bill to a financial institution before the bill expires in order to obtain a certain interest on the funds, which is a way for financial institutions to raise funds from the holder. The Notice defines bill discount as the borrowing behavior of the holder to finance funds. The People's Bank of China issued Article 9 of 1996 "General Rules for Loans", which juxtaposed "credit loans, secured loans and bill discounting" and made it clear that "bill discounting refers to loans issued by the lender by purchasing the borrower's unexpired commercial bills". The General Principles also make it clear that bill discounting is the act of issuing loans.
In addition, commercial banks implement the statistical system of reporting all subjects issued by the central bank, and classify "bill financing" as "various loans" statistical subjects. The indicators set in this statistical system include:
(1) Loans, the sub-items of which are:
4. Bill financing;
(2) adjust the project. As can be seen from the above statistics, according to the central bank's full-subject reporting system, bill financing business is a sub-item listed under loan projects, that is, bill financing belongs to loans.
At the same time, the Notice of State Taxation Administration of The People's Republic of China of the Ministry of Finance on Relevant Issues Concerning Pre-tax Deduction of Enterprise Income Tax for Loan Loss Reserves of Financial Enterprises (Caishui [2009] No.64) stipulates that loan assets that are allowed to withdraw loan loss reserves include: loans (including mortgages, pledges, guarantees and other loans); Bank card overdraft, discount, credit advance, etc. It can be seen that corporate income tax also classifies discounts as loans.
To sum up, bill discount is a loan method under the loan project. The essence of the discount contract signed when the bill discount business occurs also belongs to the loan contract of bill pledge. According to the provisions on loan contract in the Provisional Regulations on Stamp Duty, it is necessary to fulfill the obligation to pay stamp duty, that is, to pay stamp duty according to the loan contract.