Why does one person have two tax codes?

Mr. Pham Quoc Thach (Ba Ria - Vung Tau) reported via the Government Electronic Portal that he was granted 2 personal tax codes by the tax authority. The first tax code was granted on December 1, 2009, and the second tax code was granted by the Ba Ria - Vung Tau Provincial Tax Department on November 29, 2018.

Possessing 2 tax codes, when synchronizing personal information on the tax system, Mr. Thach could not update his citizen identification according to the identification code.

Mr. Thach requested the tax authority to consider and support him in terminating/closing the personal tax code that was issued on November 29, 2018 so that he can complete the next steps to change personal information.

According to VietNamNet Newspaper, Mr. Thach is not the only case to be granted 2 personal tax codes.

The General Department of Taxation has reviewed and discovered many cases where an individual has 2 tax codes, because the individual or organization paying income when performing tax obligations used a different identification number from the registered tax code, resulting in the individual being issued a new tax code different from the previously issued tax code.

For example, an individual was granted a tax code at a company according to the old ID card number, then quit and worked at a new company. When changing the ID card to a citizen ID card, he did not declare the old tax code, leading to when the new company declared, the system automatically created a new tax code according to the citizen ID card.

A person with 2 personal tax codes may encounter difficulties and problems when performing tax declaration procedures, tax refunds, receiving preferential policies from the state, and some other administrative procedures.

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Taxpayers can easily look up their personal tax codes online using their citizen identification cards. Photo: Hai Phong

Taxpayers do not have to carry out procedures to close or cancel duplicate tax codes.

According to the provisions of Point b, Clause 2, Article 30 of the Tax Administration Law No. 38/2019/QH14: “An individual is granted a single tax code to be used throughout his/her lifetime…”.

Personal tax codes are registered based on the ID card/citizen identification number. In principle, the ID card/citizen identification number issued by the police agency to each person is unique, so the tax code is also unique.

Responding to Mr. Thach's petition, the Ba Ria - Vung Tau Provincial Tax Department said that after checking the data, it was found that Mr. Thach had income from salaries and wages on 2 personal tax codes; and had registered dependents on 2 personal tax codes.

Mr. Thach needs to resend the official dispatch requesting termination of the tax code validity to the tax authority after determining that he will not request the tax authority to adjust or change the registration of dependents for family deductions, or request a refund of the personal income tax deducted at the income paying agency for the tax code proposed to be terminated.

Along with that, Mr. Thach needs to request the income paying agency to adjust the declared tax code for personal income tax deduction and registration of family deduction for dependents from the tax code proposed to be terminated to the retained tax code.

Also according to the Tax Department of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, the General Department of Taxation and the Ministry of Public Security are implementing the exchange of information between the tax database and the National Population Database to query information on identification codes corresponding to tax codes, preparing for the conversion to using personal identification codes instead of tax codes.

While waiting for the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Public Security to synchronize data, if a taxpayer has multiple duplicate tax codes, they do not have to carry out procedures to close or cancel duplicate tax codes that exist in the system.

The tax authority will base on the taxpayer's tax registration information to merge the tax codes and personal identification numbers into one tax code which is the personal identification number.

During the review and standardization phase of personal tax codes, tax authorities guide taxpayers to carry out the following steps:

+ Determine the retained tax code (priority is given to retaining the previously issued tax code or the tax code currently used for tax declaration, payment, and family deduction registration) for unified use in tax declaration and payment;

+ If the declared information is incorrect, the taxpayer must fully and accurately update 3 pieces of information (including: Full name; citizen identification number or identity card; date of birth of the individual) in the tax code, ensuring that it matches the information in the National Population Database.