August 10, China’s first blockchain electronic invoice was unveiled in the country’s Silicon Valley of hardware, Shenzhen. As the International Trade Revolving Restaurant issued a blockchain e-invoice today, Shenzhen becomes the first pilot city for blockchain e-invoices in China.

This blockchain e-invoice pilot project is led by the Shenzhen Municipal Taxation Bureau. The gaming and social media giant Tencent provides the underlying technological supports to develop the first ‘blockchain+invoice’ ecosystem application in China.

This initiative has also been approved by the State Administration of Taxation. A series of local enterprises have participated in the pilot project, including Shenzhen International Trade Revolving Restaurant, Shenzhen Baoti Parking Lot, Pingshan Auto Repair Shop, Image Tencent Impression Coffee Shop and so on. They are the first batch of merchants that access to the blockchain e-invoice system.

In the first phase of the pilot application, Shenzhen Taxation Bureau has cooperated with Tencent and Kingdee Software to jointly build a comprehensive invoice management application scenario. By adopting blockchain technology, users may reimburse a tax invoice through a simple process of WeChat payment, invoice issuing and reimbursement.

Li Ronghui, director of the Information Center of Shenzhen Taxation Bureau, revealed that the blockchain e-invoice is a unique pilot project approved by the State Administration of Taxation. Enterprises will be able to get tax return through the e-invoice system; users can also complete the reimbursement processes and get refund on blockchain.

For tax bureaus and tax regulators, the whole supervention process can be upgraded through technical innovation. The tax management process will be more controllable and paperless based on blockchain technology.

In a nutshell, When a online payment has been completed , the data for the transaction can be seen as an “invoice.” The DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) will make connections between the taxpayer, merchants, tax bureaus, companies and other participants. Meanwhile, every process of the “blockchain invoice” can be traced, and the information can not be tampered with.

People can apply a tax invoice through WeChat imminently, the invoice information will be synchronized to the enterprise and tax bureau in real time. The reimbursement will be obtained online, and reimbursement process can be checked at any time.