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Firms urge tax, customs reforms
Tax and customs procedures should be simplified to ensure a transparent and favourable environment for business, Deputy Director of the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Pham Gia Tuc has said.
VCCI joined the Ministry of Finance to organise a dialogue with businesses yesterday in Ha Noi to tackle difficulties enterprises face in tax and customs procedures and discuss amendments to the law on tax management.
According to a VCCI report, 90 per cent of enterprises surveyed highly appreciated the effort of tax and customs procedure reform made during the last few years, which they claimed had helped their business.
"However, many problems hindering enterprises' operations were still revealed, which requires greater effort to tackle," Tuc said.
According to Tuc, the inconsistency in legal documents as well as the lack of up-to-date information has caused confusion in implementing tax and customs-related operations.
Tax exemptions and extensions applied to enterprises had been controversial and were in need of detailed regulations, he added.
He also said restricting to tax and customs officials was also a barrier.
According to Hoang Manh Thang from the Thanh Hoa Construction Company, the basis to assess a product's price for taxation must be clarified to avoid losses to businesses, some of which have been taxed twice for the one item.
Deputy general director of the Garment 10 Corporation Hoang Minh Khang agreed, saying wiping out these obstacles would ensure competition among enterprises and improve the work with customs and tax agencies.
According to Deputy Minister of Finance Hoang Anh Tuan, the application of information technology in customs and tax operations would help boost efficiency.
The pilot application of e-customs was ongoing and the model would be replicated throughout the country to help simplify tax and customs procedures.
A draft amendment to the law on tax management would aim to modernise and simplify tax procedures while enhancing tax management capacities, emphasised Tuan.
In addition, decrees on value-added tax, corporate income tax and special consumption tax would also be amended to ensure equality.
According to the Ministry of Finance's report, nearly 40,000 enterprises have registered for online the tax declaration service.
The ministry also aims to provide electronic tax services to about 80 per cent of businesses throughout the country by 2015.
E-customs has been piloted in 20 out of 23 provincial customs departments and the number of electronic customs procedures has reached 68 per cent.
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