Tax collection must win the people's trust.

Reforming administrative procedures and facilitating tax payment must begin with amending unreasonable, or even absurd, regulations.

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

Many people were shocked when they read the article "Don't let small tax debts lead to big back taxes." They were shocked because, under current regulations, it's likely that many people will soon receive back tax notices like Mr. LTH, an employee of a large joint-stock bank branch in Quang Ngai .

Simply because the paying entity where Mr. LTH worked did not deduct the 10% tax before paying his income, due to the relatively small payments (one amount of 3.3 million VND/year, another only 300,000 VND/year), he was charged by the tax authorities with back taxes, fines, and late payment penalties totaling 20.7 million VND.

However, if a provisional tax deduction is applied, the amount of tax he has to pay is only 360,000 VND (10% of income).

Some people even doubted whether this was true and why the difference was as much as 57 times.

The significant discrepancy arose because, according to regulations, the tax authorities combined all three of Mr. LTH's income sources to calculate tax using the progressive tax rate schedule, causing him to jump to a higher tax bracket and resulting in a tax shortfall of over 10.52 million VND.

In addition, based on the tax payment deadlines for 2022 and 2023, the tax authorities calculated the late payment penalty at 527,000 VND, plus a fine of 9,646,000 VND.

According to experts, in this situation, the tax authorities' action of collecting the outstanding tax is not wrong, based on Decree 126. However, from a moral standpoint, it is inappropriate because the regulation was essentially issued to facilitate taxpayers and reduce the workload for the tax authorities.

However, the policy does not fully cover all the situations that arise in practice, such as many individuals like university lecturers and doctors who earn only 300,000-500,000 VND per occasion from contributions to their professional work outside their workplace. Their main income from their respective agencies has already been fully paid.

In essence, they had no intention of evading taxes, but they were subjected to excessively heavy penalties, back taxes, and late payment fees, amounting to dozens of times the amount of temporarily withheld tax. As a result, taxpayers find themselves in a situation where they have to fulfill their obligations but feel dissatisfied with the outcome.

Therefore, to fully support and further facilitate individual taxpayers, tax experts recommend that the Ministry of Finance issue clear guidelines on this matter, aiming to maximize convenience for taxpayers.

Taxpayers should not be subjected to massive back taxes, sometimes dozens of times higher, for a small tax debt. This goes against the spirit of "tax collection must win the hearts of the people," a principle the tax sector has repeatedly emphasized in its "listening" conferences.

In other words, administrative procedure reform and facilitating taxpayers must begin with amending unreasonable, even absurd, regulations as reflected above.

This also benefits the tax authorities by reducing the workload for those filing tax returns, especially given the continuous surge in the number of personal income tax returns in recent years.

Only in this way can the tax sector effectively implement the motto "Transparency, professionalism, integrity, and innovation," and promptly resolve difficulties and obstacles in the process of fulfilling tax obligations.

Businesses and taxpayers also feel that their feedback is being acknowledged promptly, rather than having to harbor grievances and wait for responses in "listening" conferences as has happened recently.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/thu-thue-phai-thu-duoc-long-dan-20241104085031846.htm