Many individuals who finalize their personal income tax for 2023 with the tax authorities (the deadline is May 2, 2024) encounter troublesome problems. According to Mr. Mai Son, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Taxation, all troubles will end when using the citizen identification number as the tax code (MST).
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| Mr. Mai Son, Deputy General Director of General Department of Taxation. |
Sir, many people complain that it takes time and is inconvenient to directly go to settle personal income tax?
We have heard feedback on this issue.
Through research, it is found that problems arise when individuals have multiple tax codes. This is a historical existence. Specifically, when opening a tax code, individuals are required to have identification documents such as a citizen identification card, identity card or passport. Because many individuals have multiple documents such as 9-digit identity cards, 12-digit identity cards, citizen identification cards, passports; not to mention, many people change their permanent residence, make new identity cards, citizen identification cards, but still use their old identification documents, so they have many different tax codes.
When an individual goes to settle their tax return, the tax authority reviews the income in all places with different tax codes to determine whether they are subject to additional payment (after temporarily deducting personal income tax) or are eligible for a refund, which takes time.
I think that the fact that a person has multiple tax codes is a legacy of history, because the individual does not understand the inconvenience of having multiple tax codes, but the fact that an individual registers multiple tax codes is not for the purpose of tax evasion, tax fraud or appropriation of state budget money. This inconvenience will end when the tax authority completes the conversion of tax codes to citizen identification numbers according to Project 06 (Developing applications of data on population, identification and electronic authentication to serve national digital transformation according to Decision 06/QD-TTg dated January 6, 2022).
What moves does the tax industry have to reduce this inconvenience before using citizen identification numbers as tax codes?
The inconvenience caused by individuals having multiple tax codes not only occurs in the case of personal income tax settlement, but also occurs in cases where individuals perform obligations to the state budget such as paying registration fees for cars, motorbikes, real estate, non-agricultural land tax...
To reduce the inconvenience in tax administration, the tax authority has instructed taxpayers to change their identification information. However, as of December 2023, the Centralized Tax Management System (TMS) does not allow changes when the ID number matches another individual's identification number that already exists in the system. Therefore, in order for taxpayers to be able to carry out procedures for declaring, paying taxes and fees, we have instructed taxpayers to close other tax codes and use only one tax code, using their citizen identification to declare when opening a tax code.
In case an individual still has multiple tax codes, to facilitate their tax procedures, from January 2024, the General Department of Taxation has removed the condition of checking for duplicate ID/ID numbers on the TMS System. We recommend that individuals close/cancel their tax codes according to regulations.
Many people have also found it troublesome to have more than one tax code, so they have closed some. However, according to feedback, closing and canceling tax codes is also troublesome, isn't that right, sir?
Closing and canceling a tax code is actually very simple.
Specifically, for individuals who authorize the income paying agency to change tax registration information, the income paying agency submits the application for changing tax registration information for the authorized individual via the General Department of Taxation's Electronic Information Portal. In this case, there is no problem, because the accountant of the income paying agency is very proficient.
In case an individual changes tax registration information by himself/herself, he/she must do so in one of the electronic forms such as through the National Public Service Portal, or through the Electronic Information Portal of the General Department of Taxation, or through the Etax Mobile application.
In fact, e-government transactions and e-public administration have just been put into practice. Most people do not use them regularly, so every time they declare and log in on the electronic environment, they feel inconvenienced because they are not familiar with this form of transaction.
In case people are not familiar with the electronic system, they can send the documents to the tax office by post, or go directly to the tax office to do it. At the tax office, there is always a department to support taxpayers.
Another issue that has been reported is that many people who go to settle their personal income tax are shocked when they suddenly have many “sky-high” incomes. How do you explain this issue?
Most people who regularly use mobile phones every day are bothered by advertising calls offering all kinds of services. This situation occurs because the subscriber accidentally reveals their personal phone number. In the case of individuals when settling taxes, they suddenly find that they have irregular income somewhere that they have never received, it is because they accidentally revealed their tax code, which has been taken advantage of by some income payers by falsely declaring the amount of income paid to individuals, in order to reduce tax obligations to the state budget.
When an individual makes a tax settlement, the tax authority will review all income through the information technology system and immediately detect that the payment to the individual by a certain income paying agency is virtual, an act of tax fraud or tax evasion. The tax authority will immediately conduct an inspection, check and handle it strictly, and individuals who actually have no income will not have to pay personal income tax.
When the tax code is unified into the citizen identification number, this situation will certainly end, because individuals can manage all transactions related to financial obligations to the state budget through the electronic identification application on smartphones.
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