These certificates can offset your income tax. Don't forget to apply for a tax refund.

Headline: These certificates can be used to offset income tax—don’t forget to apply for a tax refund

Don’t rush

This article will teach you!

How to obtain a professional qualification certificate?

Professional qualification certificates can be divided into

Professional and technical personnel professional qualification certificates

Professional and technical personnel professional qualification examinations are uniformly organized by government departments or carried out by relevant industry associations on their behalf, with written tests as the main format. After examinees pass the exam, they can obtain a professional qualification certificate for professional and technical personnel or a certificate of passing the exam.

Government departments and relevant industry associations

Conduct recognition and issue certificates

For example

Teacher qualification is implemented and certified specifically by the Ministry of Education; legal profession qualifications are implemented and certified specifically by the Ministry of Justice; qualifications for tax agents are implemented and certified specifically by the China Association of Certified Tax Agents.

Note!

Professional and technical personnel professional qualification examinations follow a separate system for exam preparation and training. The human resources and social security departments or personnel examination institutions have not designated any training organization to carry out vocational qualification exam training.

The so-called “question-setting experts” of training institutions are absolutely not members of the current exam question-setting team, and you must not be fooled by marketing tactics from vendors.

Q

Are job titles and professional and technical personnel professional qualification certificates mutually recognized?

It depends on the specific situation

Currently, in our country, the job title system and the professional qualification system have been effectively connected.

To avoid overlapping setups, reduce repeated evaluations, and lower the cost of employing talent in society, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, based on job classification, has comprehensively studied and planned the framework for the job title system and the professional qualification system.

In career fields closely related to job titles and professional qualifications, a corresponding relationship between job titles and professional qualifications is established. When professional and technical talent obtains a professional qualification, it can be recognized that they have the corresponding series and level of job title, and it can also serve as a condition for applying for a higher-level job title.

For specialties where initial-level and intermediate-level job titles require nationwide unified exams, the corresponding job title evaluation or recognition is no longer conducted.

Skills personnel professional qualification certificates

Skills personnel professional qualification certificates are mainly obtained through occupational skills assessments organized by the relevant implementing departments (units) in the occupational qualification directory.

Which certificates can be used to claim a tax refund?

According to Article 8 of the《Notice of the State Council on Printing and Distributing the Interim Measures for Special Additional Deductions for Individual Income Tax》（Guofa〔2018〕41）, it is stipulated that: for taxpayers who receive further education (degree) in China, during the period of education (degree) instruction, their expenditures shall be deducted at a fixed rate of 400 yuan per month. The deduction period for receiving further education (degree) for the same education (degree) shall not exceed 48 months. For taxpayers who receive further education for professional qualification credentials for skills personnel or further education for professional qualification credentials for professional and technical personnel, the expenditures, in the year they obtain the relevant certificates, shall be deducted at a fixed rate of 3,600 yuan.

In simple terms

Fill in the special additional deduction for continuing education in vocational qualifications

You can deduct it at the fixed standard of 3,600 yuan

But you need to meet the following conditions

The qualification certificate obtained must be within the scope of the《National Occupational Qualification Directory》.

It must be deducted in the year when the relevant professional qualification certificate is obtained.

（Source: Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security）