子公司半年补税1.2亿 隔膜龙头恩捷股份业绩刚复苏就要还旧账

This article discloses key tax and operational risks facing leading lithium-ion separator manufacturer Enjie Co., Ltd. amid its performance recovery, with key insights as follows:

1. Core event: Three subsidiaries of Enjie completed voluntary self-inspection and back-tax payment in the first half of 2025, with total back taxes and late fees exceeding 120 million yuan. The late payment period spans approximately two years, and the issue is a legacy problem from previous years. No administrative penalties have been issued for this voluntary back-tax filing. The back-tax payments will be recorded in the current profits and losses of 2025 and 2026 respectively, and will reduce the attributable net profit of the corresponding years.

2. Exposed problems: The back-tax incident reveals internal control weaknesses behind Enjie's high-speed expansion. In addition, the company faces nearly 9.65 billion yuan in short-term debt, with only 2.889 billion yuan in cash on hand, leaving a funding gap of more than 6.7 billion yuan. Combined with high accounts receivable, the company faces enormous cash flow pressure.

3. Industry status: Enjie has just emerged from an industry-wide period of overcapacity and price wars, returning to profitability and entering a recovery phase in 2025. However, it still faces multiple risks including a new round of overcapacity from expansion, technological iteration from solid-state batteries, and intensifying peer competition.

This article provides key takeaways for brand owners in the new energy materials sector, as follows:

1. Compliance warning: Starting in 2025, Chinese authorities have designated lithium batteries and other "new three exports" as key tax supervision targets, cracking down on improper claims of R&D super deduction tax incentives. A widespread unspoken rule in the lithium-ion separator industry is reclassifying production expenses as R&D investment. The Enjie back-tax incident reminds brand owners to standardize R&D expense classification, improve internal control systems, and avoid compliance risks.

2. Industry trend reference: The lithium-ion separator industry has shifted from a boom period of undersupply to overcapacity, and price wars have sharply compressed industry profit margins. While inefficient capacity is gradually being phased out, and demand for wet-process separators is growing driven by the adoption of large energy storage cells, leading brands have already resumed large-scale expansion, calling into question the sustainability of any future price rebound.

3. Operational takeaway: Rapid expansion to capitalize on industry booms can drive short-term scale growth, but also exposes internal control and funding risks. Brands need to balance scale expansion with risk management, and make early布局 for next-generation technologies to mitigate technological iteration risks.

This article provides key insights on policy, market and risks for sellers along the lithium battery supply chain, as follows:

1. Policy warning: In 2025, the State Taxation Administration of China explicitly designated lithium batteries and other "new three exports" as key tax supervision targets, with a focus on cracking down on the fraudulent practice of classifying production expenses as R&D costs to claim tax incentives. Sellers should conduct voluntary tax self-inspections in advance, standardize accounting practices, and avoid large unexpected back-tax losses later.

2. Market opportunity overview: 314Ah large cells have become the mainstream in the energy storage industry, and downstream customers are rapidly shifting from dry-process separators to wet-process separators, pushing wet-process separators' market share to nearly 81%. As inefficient capacity is phased out and leading enterprises have started to recover performance, structural growth opportunities exist in the market.

3. Risk warning: Leading players have already resumed large-scale expansion, and when new capacity comes online in 2027-2028, it is very likely to trigger another round of price wars. Meanwhile, the commercialization window for solid-state batteries is approaching, putting traditional separator capacity at risk of idling. Rapid expansion also increases the risk of capital chain rupture, which sellers should watch for closely.

This article provides key insights on demand, opportunities and operations for lithium-ion material manufacturing factories, as follows:

1. R&D and production requirements: The core barrier for high-end wet-process lithium separators is access to advanced production equipment. A common improper industry practice is reclassifying production expenses such as production line commissioning and process optimization as R&D investment. With tax regulation tightening, factories must standardize R&D expense classification, claim tax incentives compliantly, and avoid the risk of large back-tax payments.

2. Business opportunity overview: Large energy storage cells have now become the industry mainstream, which demand higher stability and consistency from separators, driving growth in wet-process separator demand. Wet-process separators' market share rose from 76.9% in 2024 to nearly 80.7% in 2025, allowing wet-process separator manufacturers to capitalize on this demand growth dividend.

3. Operational takeaway: Rapid expansion to capitalize on industry booms enables fast scale growth, but extends management chains and creates internal control gaps. Large-scale expansion also creates massive funding pressure. Factories need to balance capacity expansion with their own management and funding capabilities, and develop semi-solid and solid-state compatible separator technologies early to prepare for future technological iteration.

This article provides key insights on industry trends, client pain points and business opportunities for service providers serving the new energy lithium battery sector, as follows:

1. Industry development trends: After a boom period of rapid expansion followed by overcapacity and price wars, the lithium separator industry is now at a cyclical inflection point. The phase-out of inefficient capacity has driven higher industry concentration, demand for wet-process separators is growing with the adoption of large cells, and leading firms' performance is recovering. However, leading players have already resumed large-scale expansion, so overcapacity risks remain in the future. Technologically, solid-state batteries are the next-generation direction, and 2027 will be a critical year for their commercialization.

2. Core client pain points: After years of rapid expansion, lithium battery companies generally face issues including insufficient tax compliance, imperfect internal control systems, large funding gaps and tight cash flow. They also face pressure from technological iteration and peer competition, leaving a large amount of unmet demand for professional services.

3. Business opportunity reference: Service providers can develop targeted offerings for lithium battery companies, including tax compliance consulting, internal control system building, financing connection, and digital management upgrades, to help enterprises balance expansion and risk control. Providers can also布局 related service businesses around R&D support for solid-state battery technology.

This article provides key insights on demand, investment promotion and operations for new energy industry platform operators, as follows:

1. Enterprise demand overview: During their expansion and growth, lithium battery enterprises have multi-dimensional demands including tax compliance consulting, internal control upgrade, financing connection, capacity layout matching, and technological R&D support. Platforms can adjust their service systems to match these demands and improve platform attractiveness.

2. Investment promotion direction reference: Wet-process separators are benefiting from sustained demand growth driven by the adoption of large energy storage cells, and leading enterprises are still expanding capacity. Meanwhile, traditional separator leaders are developing new technologies for semi-solid and solid-state batteries. Platforms can focus their investment promotion on these high-quality projects to attract relevant enterprises and improve the quality of their investment pipeline.

3. Operational risk warning: The lithium industry is highly cyclical. It has just emerged from price wars and entered a new expansion cycle, so overcapacity is very likely to reemerge in the future. Technological iteration risk is also high. In daily operations, platforms should remind enterprises of these risks, guide rational capacity expansion, and promote compliant operations to help enterprises avoid tax and other compliance risks.

This article provides materials on new industry developments, emerging issues and research implications for researchers of the new energy lithium industry, as follows:

1. New industry developments: The lithium separator industry is currently at a cyclical inflection point. After the phase-out of inefficient capacity, wet-process separators have seen sustained growth in demand and market share driven by the adoption of large energy storage cells, and leading enterprises have returned to profitability for a recovery. However, leading players have all launched a new round of large-scale expansion, and after concentrated capacity release in 2027-2028, the industry supply-demand outlook remains highly uncertain. As solid-state battery commercialization approaches, traditional separator leaders have already started布局 relevant technologies.

2. New industry issues: During the high-speed expansion period, the widespread industry norm has been non-compliant R&D expense classification, and this issue has come to the fore amid tighter tax regulation. Rapid expansion has also exposed prominent internal control weaknesses at many firms. Combined with losses from price wars, even leading enterprises face significant capital chain pressure, and technological iteration puts the risk of idling on the industry's large existing capacity base.

3. Research implications: Tighter tax regulation on the "new three exports" will drive industry-wide compliance development. Future research can focus on the balance between scale expansion and risk control in cyclical industries, track the impact of technological iteration on existing industry structures, and study effective paths for leading enterprises to navigate industry cycles.