活动回顾 | 沙之星2026跨境出海财税合规私享会·深沪双城站圆满收官

At the StarShore 2026 Cross-Border Tax Compliance Private Summit, held across Shanghai and Shenzhen, industry practitioners shared multi-dimensional, actionable insights focused on the world's four largest core cross-border markets. Participants reached a core consensus: by 2026, cross-border tax compliance is no longer a mere cost center for global sellers, but has fully transformed into a core asset and competitive moat — compliance is a prerequisite for survival for cross-border companies.

1. Top-level structure design: The ultimate goal of a global corporate structure is not simply tax optimization, but to reserve room for business global expansion, local operations, and future capitalization paths. Optimal structure designs align with different business models.

2. Regional compliance practice: The summit sorted out compliance risks and provided actionable response strategies tailored to the latest regulatory updates in Europe, the U.S., Canada and Australia.

3. Related-party transactions and profit repatriation: Attendees learned how to set reasonable related-party transaction prices to withstand tax audits under the global anti-tax-avoidance framework, and how to achieve safe, efficient and fully compliant capital repatriation.

For cross-border brands, this private summit clarified the latest trends in global tax regulation and delivered compliance insights tailored for brand global expansion, helping brands build sustainable competitive moats.

1. Industry trend outlook: Global tax regulation has entered a new era of data-driven interconnected oversight by 2026. Tax compliance is no longer optional; it is a survival requirement for global brands, and a core competitive advantage.

2. Aligning top-level structure to brand needs: For brand-focused business models, companies can design global structures that balance tax efficiency, legal liability separation and access to capital pathways, reserving flexibility for global expansion and future capital operations.

3. Compliance support for core markets: The summit sorted out the impact of the latest regulatory policies in Europe, the U.S., Canada and Australia — the four core markets for most brand exporters — clarified risk points including customs classification and tax audits, and delivered actionable compliance solutions to help brands avoid penalties.

For cross-border sellers, this private summit sorted out the latest global tax regulations, clarified compliance requirements, flagged risks and delivered response strategies, offering valuable actionable guidance for daily operations.

1. Latest policy updates: Europe has rolled out DAC7 platform data reporting and the ViDA digital VAT reform, eliminating the tariff exemption for packages under €150. The U.S. IRS has upgraded from sample audits to full-data penetrating reviews. Tax authorities in Canada and Australia now use data matching to accurately identify compliance gaps among non-resident enterprises. Overall, global regulation has tightened significantly.

2. Risk warnings: The summit clarified tax filing traps for different cross-border operating models, as well as common risks such as incorrect product classification and unreasonable pricing, which can lead to lost tariff benefits, overpaid taxes, and even audit penalties.

3. Opportunities and response: Compliance has become a new competitive moat, and sellers that restructure their tax systems early will gain a competitive edge. The summit provided actionable solutions including VAT compliance scans for common risks, and detailed methods for compliant profit repatriation.

For factories planning to go global or already operating cross-border businesses, this private summit outlined the latest industry changes and delivered multi-faceted insights to support factories in expanding globally in a stable, sustainable manner.

1. Business opportunities and compliance prerequisites: Compliance is now a core competitive moat for cross-border enterprises. Whether a factory is pursuing supply chain integration or launching its own brand, tax compliance must be a foundational prerequisite to secure survival and growth amid tightening regulation.

2. Structure design for common factory models: Optimal top-level structure designs exist for the common supply chain integration-focused go-global model adopted by many factories, balancing tax efficiency and expansion needs to support global business growth.

3. Insights for digital cross-border expansion: Factories entering cross-border e-commerce need to restructure their tax systems in advance, understand the regulatory requirements of the four major markets (Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia) ahead of time, and prioritize avoiding common risks such as incorrect customs classification, incorrect origin determination, and non-compliant tax filing to keep operations running smoothly.

For service providers supporting cross-border enterprises, this private summit clarified industry development trends, core client pain points and future business directions, delivering high-value actionable insights.

1. Industry development trend: By 2026, global tax regulation has entered an era of full transparency powered by interconnected data, and tax audit intensity has increased sharply across all major markets. Cross-border tax compliance has shifted from an optional add-on service to a core rigid demand for global enterprises, driving substantial market growth.

2. Core client pain points: Cross-border enterprises currently face three core pain points: 1) poorly designed top-level structures that cannot support business expansion and capitalization paths; 2) lack of familiarity with the latest regulatory rules in the four core markets, leading to frequent missteps into compliance traps; and 3) non-compliant related-party transaction pricing and non-compliant profit repatriation that leave enterprises exposed to tax audits in multiple jurisdictions.

3. Guidance for business development: Service providers can build actionable, end-to-end solutions around global top-level structure design, regional compliance risk scanning, audit response, and compliant profit repatriation to meet the current rigid market demand.

This private summit highlighted shifting demand in the cross-border industry, delivering clear actionable insights for cross-border platforms on seller recruitment, operations and risk mitigation.

1. Shifting seller demand: Amid tightening global regulation, Europe now explicitly requires platforms to complete DAC7 data reporting. Seller demand for compliance services has shifted from a value-added need to a survival requirement. Platforms can add a dedicated compliance service segment, partner with professional institutions to provide compliance support for sellers, and improve seller retention.

2. Adjusting recruitment strategy: Compliance capability has become a core competitiveness for cross-border enterprises. Platforms can prioritize recruiting sellers that have already built a compliant tax system, improve overall platform seller quality, and reduce the platform's aggregate compliance risk.

3. Platform risk mitigation: Platforms need to complete their own compliance work in line with the latest regulatory requirements of each jurisdiction, cooperate with mandates including data reporting, and can also regularly hold compliance training for sellers to help them avoid compliance risks, while reducing the platform's own regulatory exposure.

This private summit outlined the latest development trends in the cross-border go-global industry, raised new industry-wide issues, and provided clear guidance on research directions for scholars and industry analysts.

1. New industry trends: By 2026, global tax regulation has fully entered the era of interconnected data. Governments have upgraded oversight through data matching and full-data penetrating audits, driving a sector-wide compliance upgrade across the cross-border industry. Compliance has transformed from a historical cost center to a core competitive moat for enterprises — this is one of the most fundamental shifts in the cross-border industry in recent years.

2. New industry challenges: A large share of cross-border enterprises currently operate with tax and corporate structures that do not meet regulatory requirements, with misalignment between structure design and business model needs. Additionally, many enterprises lack awareness of the latest regulatory policies in major markets, leading to widespread common issues such as non-compliant related-party transactions and non-compliant profit repatriation.

3. Guidance for future research: Researchers can conduct in-depth research on compliance business models for cross-border enterprises, differentiated top-level structure design, and region-specific compliance implementation strategies, against the background of global regulatory upgrading, to map out compliant development paths for different types of cross-border enterprises.