Tax industry needs more 'incognito' trips

People and business representatives do tax procedures at the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department on April 11 - Photo: TTD

Instead of only having a dialogue with Southern enterprises once a year at the end of the year for only one session like previous years, this year the tax sector leaders made a breakthrough by organizing a dialogue with 300 enterprises in five key economic provinces in the South for the whole day, on September 27.

This year's dialogue conference can be likened to a "incognito" trip by tax industry leaders to grasp the situation in the Southern region, where businesses are most stuck in value-added tax (VAT) refunds.

With the spirit of open and frank dialogue, without avoidance, the General Department of Taxation has heard the issues that Southern enterprises are concerned about, the most painful of which is the prolonged delay in VAT refunds.

Some enterprises have sued the tax authorities in court, such as Fococev Vietnam Joint Stock Company (District 4, Ho Chi Minh City) because of a six-year delay in tax refund, and the court of first instance ruled in favor of the enterprise.

Many other businesses also said that they were haunted by the tax authorities' repeated requests for explanations, including requests that businesses could hardly meet, leading to a backlog of tens, even hundreds of billions of dong in tax refunds, leaving businesses gasping for breath.

Leading the dialogue, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Taxation Mai Son requested at least twice that the tax authority immediately contact the enterprise that has just reported to remove and thoroughly resolve the problem, and the General Department of Taxation will monitor the results after this conference.

Of course, the bottlenecks in VAT refunds are not only from the tax authorities but "on both sides".

Recently, the problem of "ghost" enterprises and invoice trading has been very strong. Just one case involved 637 enterprises, issued more than 1 million invoices, and deducted VAT revenue reached 3,315 billion VND.

The situation of millions of fake invoices from these "ghost" enterprises creates concerns not only for enterprises about the possibility of using invoices from illegal buyers and sellers, but also for tax authorities, if they do not carefully review, the ThuDuc House case may repeat itself in the future.

Therefore, resolving the bottlenecks in VAT refunds will not be possible overnight. However, there is also a positive sign when the tax sector leader said that the General Department of Taxation is developing regulations to prioritize enterprises with a long history of import-export activities, good compliance, and VAT refund records that have been inspected and checked... to be given priority for tax refunds first.

The General Department of Taxation organizing a dialogue conference in localities where hot issues exist is a new approach that needs to be replicated. Because through the conference, the leaders of the General Department of Taxation listen to the most genuine wishes and aspirations of businesses.

Indirectly, these "incognito" visits also put more or less pressure on local tax authorities in performing their duties.

Businesses' complaints about being made "difficult" will also decrease and conferences like this will tend to be more "suggestive" instead of "untangling" as expected by the head of the tax industry.

Therefore, it is necessary to make more "incognito" trips by tax industry leaders to "hot spots" in the future so that businesses' problems can be resolved more quickly, both in terms of policy and enforcement.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nganh-thue-can-them-nhieu-chuyen-vi-hanh-20240930081329476.htm