Why are people being delayed from leaving the country due to skyrocketing tax debts?

In the first eight months of 2024 alone, there were 17,952 cases of temporary suspension of exit from the country announced by tax authorities, many times higher than in 2023.

In just eight months of 2024, there were 17,952 cases of temporary suspension of exit by tax authorities, many times higher than in 2023 - Photo: TTD

Tax debt continuously increases at the end of the year, forcing the tax industry to apply many strong measures to recover debt, including temporary suspension. Departure postponement for tax debtors over 90 days.

Tax debt collection measures

According to the General Department of Taxation, as of August 14, the tax authority has announced temporary suspension of exit for 17,952 cases, with tax arrears of VND30,388 billion. Of these, 10,829 taxpayers have abandoned their business addresses, with tax arrears of VND6,894 billion.

After issuing decisions to temporarily suspend exit, tax authorities collected 1,341 billion VND. tax debt of 2,116 people.

Faced with the situation of increasing tax debt, the General Department of Taxation has just issued Official Letter 4216 to tax departments, requiring tax authorities to issue tax debt notices to taxpayers electronically via electronic tax transaction accounts (eTax) for debts over 30 days old.

If the taxpayer does not have an electronic tax transaction account, but has registered an email address, the tax authority will support sending notifications via email and via the eTax Mobile application.

For taxpayers with tax arrears of more than 60 days, tax officials must regularly contact taxpayers to remind them to pay their tax arrears and notify taxpayers that enforcement measures will be applied when the debt is more than 90 days old.

In case of tax arrears of more than 90 days or tax arrears subject to enforcement, tax authorities must immediately apply enforcement measures and publicly disclose information as prescribed.

Expanding the scope of exit suspension due to tax debt

In mid-September, the Binh Dinh Provincial Tax Department issued a notice to the Tax Management Department. immigration (Ministry of Public Security) on the temporary suspension of exit from the country for a general director of a large company.

This case is not an isolated one. In recent months, many CEOs of enterprises have been temporarily suspended from leaving the country because their companies owe taxes, including many famous enterprises. There are cases where after being named, they paid taxes and had their temporary suspension of departure lifted.

According to research of Tuoi Tre , currently the regulations on temporary suspension of exit are increasingly expanding. Previously, according to the 2006 Law on Tax Administration, there were only three cases subject to temporary suspension of exit: Vietnamese people leaving the country to settle abroad, Vietnamese people settling abroad, and foreigners who must complete their tax obligations before leaving Vietnam.

However, Decree No. 126 of the Government issued on December 19, 2020 (guiding the Law on Tax Administration No. 38) has expanded the case of "individuals, individuals who are legal representatives of taxpayers who are enterprises that are subject to forced enforcement of administrative decisions on tax administration and have not fulfilled their tax payment obligations" in addition to the above three cases.

Are people with personal income tax debts subject to a delay in leaving the country?

Recently, after installing the eTax Mobile application, many people discovered that they had tax debts from several years ago. Some people owed a few hundred thousand, but there were also cases where they owed tens of millions of dong. So are these cases at risk of being temporarily suspended from leaving the country?

Speaking with Tuoi Tre, Lawyer Tran Xoa, Director of Minh Dang Quang Law Firm, said that according to previous regulations, tax authorities had to go through the steps in order when applying tax enforcement measures such as: freezing bank accounts, withdrawing money from accounts, deducting part of salary or income, stopping customs procedures for imported and exported goods, stopping the use of invoices, revoking business registration certificates, temporarily suspending exit from the country, etc. However, according to the new Tax Administration Law, tax authorities can skip the previous steps if they feel they are ineffective.

According to the Law on Tax Administration and Decree No. 126/2020/ND-CP, individuals with tax debts will only be temporarily suspended from leaving the country when they are forced to execute administrative decisions on tax administration. Therefore, there must first be an administrative decision on tax administration. If there is a decision on the amount of personal income tax debt to be paid but it is not paid for more than 90 days, then it will be forced.

Therefore, if the tax debt is over 90 days, the tax authority can request a temporary suspension of exit. "Although according to regulations, when issuing this decision to the Immigration Department (Ministry of Public Security), the tax authority must also serve it to the person who owes tax.

However, many people have not received this decision and only discovered it when they were blocked from leaving the country. The reason given by the tax department is that they cannot contact the taxpayer, or the company is no longer operating at the registered address...

Therefore, according to Mr. Xoa, if there is a tax debt, taxpayers need to complete their obligations early to avoid affecting their future departure from the country. To get information about whether they have tax debts or not, taxpayers should monitor and look up their tax obligations, including the amount of tax debt, through the General Department of Taxation's electronic information portal or the eTax Mobile application.

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