The reason given by the local tax authority is that Mr. Nam is the legal representative of Bamboo Airways - a business that is being forced to execute an administrative decision on tax management due to not fulfilling its tax obligations. The temporary suspension of exit from the country starts from September 11, 2024 until the date Bamboo Airways completes its tax obligations to the budget.
But for the writer of this article, this information is no longer “strange”. After a period of monitoring the list of businessmen whose exit from the country was delayed due to tax debts, I realized that the list is getting longer and longer.
They are entrepreneurs representing publicly listed companies or micro-enterprises.
Even state-owned enterprises.
I feel that tax authorities or other government agencies, directly or indirectly involved, do not sympathize with the pain and difficulties of businesses.
Tax debt is a matter of necessity for businesses. They owe taxes only when they are in real trouble. In fact, many businesses do not only owe taxes to the State, they also owe customers, partners, banks, and even their employees. Tax arrears are very different from tax evasion.
On the one hand, when a businessperson is announced to be temporarily suspended from leaving the country, in the eyes of partners, customers and the community, they are considered to be involved in the law. When the identity of a businessperson is publicly announced and the exit suspension is suspended, which partner dares to play with or do business with them? If they are not allowed to leave the country, how can they find more partners and new orders to restore production, expand the market, and have revenue to pay tax debts and taxes? Thus, they are limited and lose the opportunity to restore production and business.
For example, Bamboo Airways once announced that it would continue to lease more aircraft to increase its fleet size to 12 by the end of 2024 and 18 by the end of 2025. As General Director, Mr. Luong Hoai Nam cannot leave the country, so how can he meet with partners to negotiate and sign contracts to implement this plan?
Mr. Nam was invited by the Investor and Board of Directors of Bamboo Airways to be the General Director to restructure the airline after it fell into an extremely difficult situation, with large losses and a lot of debt (including tax debt), with the task of keeping the airline and developing it again, gradually making a profit, attracting investment capital to both develop and gradually pay off debts to creditors (including tax authorities).
Now that Mr. Nam is delayed from leaving the country, how can he manage the business and restructure Bamboo Airways, how can the company have a chance to survive, develop again and gradually pay off its debts? That is not to say, Mr. Nam is not the one who caused the tax debts but is the one who is trying to restructure Bamboo Airways to be able to pay off the tax debts.
If so, the damage now is not only to businesses but also to the people and the country, especially in the current context of a shortage of planes and very high ticket prices.
For businessmen in public companies, the announcement of their delayed exit from the country will greatly impact the stock value of that company, greatly affecting investors and the stock market.
An economic expert commented that instead of restricting exit, it would be reasonable for the tax authority to apply administrative penalties.
Not to mention, the concept of a natural person is completely different from a legal person. A legal person owes taxes, but an individual does not, so why restrict them from leaving the country?
I think that postponing the exit of businessmen related to tax arrears and tax debts is more harmful than beneficial, especially when the business community is in a very difficult period, lasting from Covid-19 in 2020 until now, when Typhoon Yagi has just dealt a very heavy blow to businesses.
Currently, the private sector is reported to account for 46% of GDP. The problem is, of this, the majority is contributed by households (about 33% of GDP) and the remaining, about 10%, is contributed by formally registered enterprises.
In other words, the officially registered private enterprise sector in our country is very small compared to the FDI sector (accounting for more than 20% of GDP) and state-owned enterprises (more than 27% of GDP). They cannot grow.
More measures should be taken to support the private business sector to develop further, as stated in Resolution 10 of 2017.
I suddenly remembered a story told 5 years ago, when the Ministry of Planning and Investment summarized 20 years of implementing the Enterprise Law. Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management Nguyen Dinh Cung recounted the conversation former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung had with him in a meeting a few days earlier.
Mr. Cung said that Mr. Dung said that after 20 years, our country's private economic sector has two new points: one is that private corporations have appeared and two is that many businessmen are looking for green cards abroad. He added, "The former Prime Minister was very concerned about business inspection and examination, about administrative orders. Mr. Dung has returned to normal life, so he has heard many stories about the difficulties of businesses and really hopes that in the upcoming strategy, the role of the private economic sector must be highlighted, and there must be an institution to protect the people's freedom of business."
That was the story of 5 years ago. Recently, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Enterprise Law, the policy makers who designed that law organized a meeting to recall memories of their time making the law.
“When talking about the current situation of businesses, including cases of delayed departure due to tax debts, many people were moved to tears,” a retired senior official told me.
When postponing the exit of a tax-debt businessperson, of course, the tax authority has full legal regulations such as Decree 126/2020/ND-CP detailing a number of articles of the Law on Tax Administration and other relevant legal documents.
But that is not the best policy choice in the sense of “harmonized benefits, shared risks”.
TH (according to Vietnamnet)Source: https://baohaiduong.vn/xung-quanh-viec-tong-giam-doc-bamboo-airways-bi-tam-hoan-xuat-canh-393396.html
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