Why not 'clean up' tax debt data?

The Ministry of Finance has just proposed raising the tax debt threshold for temporary suspension of exit from the country to 50 million VND for individuals and 500 million VND or more for businesses.

People and businesses settle taxes at the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department - Photo: TTD

The proposed level, five times higher than the previous one, was made after the Ministry of Finance received comments from local ministries and the Vietnam Federation of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).

Considered one of the effective measures to improve the efficiency of tax debt collection and in line with international practices, however, recently when tax authorities have aggressively applied this measure, a series of problems have arisen.

The director of the personal customer division of a large joint stock bank in Ho Chi Minh City said he always complied with tax laws, but suddenly one fine day the tax authority sent a notice home saying he still owed taxes of... 45 VND.

I have to pay the tax debt, but how can I pay 45 dong, because the banking system does not allow transfers under 1,000 dong/time while direct payment is also not allowed.

However, due to the nature of his work, he often had to travel abroad for work and was afraid of being suspended from leaving the country. The bank director and his staff struggled for 23 days to completely resolve the debt.

The effort and travel time to fulfill the obligation is much greater than the 45 dong tax debt mentioned above.

The case of this bank director is not an isolated one. Ms. H.D. (HCMC) said that after hearing that many people were temporarily suspended from leaving the country, she "checked" the eTax Mobile app and discovered that 48 debts from land transactions several years ago were suspended.

It is worth mentioning that there is an amount of only 195 VND, another amount of 684 VND with the note "late payment of other amounts to regulate 100% of the local budget", or "revenue from rural land", "revenue from urban land"...

The question is, when all policies are aimed at creating favorable conditions for taxpayers, why is there no policy to "clean up" tax debt data for small debts, such as less than 50,000 VND, as the tax industry is exempting from non-agricultural land use fees for households and individuals?

Thus, the tax authorities also benefit by significantly reducing small debts while the collection is much larger than the amount collected. Above all, individuals who accidentally fall into this situation do not have to worry.

According to experts, the Ministry of Finance's proposal to raise the tax debt threshold for temporary suspension of exit to VND50 million for individuals and VND500 million or more for businesses is reasonable.

But at the same time, there needs to be a tool for people to easily look up whether they owe taxes or not, how much they owe, and most importantly, the data must be standard, clear and accurate.

Recently, the tax industry has deployed the eTax Mobile application to help taxpayers conveniently look up information, but because it is still in the early stages, the data is sometimes inaccurate, causing taxpayers to be... stunned.

Solving the problem of tax debt collection needs to be associated with cleaning up tax debt data, standardizing tax debt information and adjusting the debt threshold that requires temporary suspension of exit to an appropriate level.

Only then will the "bad tax debt" be completely resolved soon and taxpayers will not have to struggle with small debts, while the cost and effort to pay them is not small.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/sao-khong-lam-sach-du-lieu-no-thue-20241227082803514.htm