In recent years, China has attached great importance to leveraging digital technologies to enhance tax governance, and data-driven tax administration has become a key pathway for improving the effectiveness of tax governance. In 2021, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Further Deepening the Reform of Tax Collection and Administration, which emphasize the transition from invoice-based tax control to data-driven, category-specific and targeted supervision, and specifically call for strengthening intelligent tax big-data analytics. Under this data-driven governance framework, tax authorities have gradually accumulated massive volumes of tax-related data. However, the shortage of high-quality and actionable data resources, the lack of top-level design and unified planning for algorithm development, and the limited supply of professionals proficient in both information analysis and algorithmic modeling have constrained the transformation of data assets into governance capacity. Drawing on the theory of precision governance, this paper constructs a theoretical framework of data-driven mechanismsservice optimisationrisk prevention and controlcollaborative co-governance. Through case analysis, we examine the policy text alongside the day-to-day obstacles that arise when agencies and firms try to use data at scale, and we track how these issues play out in operational settings. Our reading of the cases suggests that effective data governance is difficult to sustain without two basics working together: a shared business-semantic layer and routines that let departments coordinate in real time. Service quality improves when data can move lawfully and predictably across systems; in that setting, firms meet compliance obligations more easily and tax agencies gain clearer, faster signals. Risk control works best when models follow industry logic and can be explained to non-specialists, and when the surrounding incentives make it worthwhile for staff to use those tools. The three casesQingyuans Tax Eagle-Eye System, the NARI Groups direct taxenterprise connectivity, and Jiangxis Intelligent Control Scenariosoperate at different administrative and organizational tiers yet point to the same pressure points: data quality, incentive design, and the protection of taxpayer rights. Taken together, they offer a tractable sequence of steps for improving tax administration and, more modestly, add practice-based detail to ongoing efforts in national governance modernization.
Yiwei Li (Thu,) studied this question.