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Ministry says to tighten tax control on businesses
The Ministry of Finance has said it will enhance tax inspections at enterprises in the coming months to curb tax fraud and evasion amid concern about the rising State budget deficit, a ministry official said on Thursday.
Nguyen Duc Chi, chief of the ministry office, said: “We will boost tax inspections at enterprises to fight transfer pricing, smuggling and trade fraud; check collections, management and use of collected fees and charges; and handle any tax fraud or evasion.”
At a press conference held by the finance ministry in Hanoi on Thursday, Chi said the State budget had overspent more than VND144.72 trillion, equivalent to some US$7 billion, as of the end of the third quarter.
In particular, the State budget collected VND498.49 trillion in the first nine months of the year, or 67.3% of the estimate, rising 1.3% against the same period last year. Meanwhile, the total spending amounted to VND643.21 trillion, 71.2% of the estimate, up 14.5% year-on-year.
The State budget deficit in the first nine months exceeded the estimated VND140 trillion for the whole year passed by the National Assembly.
Chi ascribed the lost revenue to negative impacts of protracted economic woes, sluggish finance and property markets, and tax breaks for struggling enterprises.
In response to the large deficit, the Prime Minister issued Directive 22/CT-TTg in September urging the finance ministry to strengthen tax collections in the final months of the year.
Chi said the ministry was urgently implementing the directive. “We will send tax inspection teams to large companies and important border gates… to promptly collect arising revenues, arrears and penalties,” he said.
Tran Van Phu, deputy head of the General Department of Taxation, said tax arrears accounted for 6.8% of the total domestic tax revenue by the end of September, of which State-owned enterprises accounted for 13%.
He said: “We will strive to reduce the percentage of tax arrears to 5% of the total domestic revenue as the State budget revenue is lower than in previous years.”
According to a report of the finance ministry, tax authorities had inspected nearly 28,350 businesses as of end-August, collecting around VND6 trillion in arrears and penalties, with some VND2.77 trillion already paid to State coffers.
Deputy Minister of Finance Vu Thi Mai said the ministry had extended incentives to non-State enterprises.
For example, the finance ministry rescheduled payments of some VND11 trillion worth of value-added tax for over 190,280 enterprises and more than VND2.9 trillion worth of corporate income tax for 71,630 payers in the second quarter. In addition, the ministry offered some 2,400 enterprises a 50% land rental cut in 2012, with the reduced amount worth VND250 billion.
At the Government meeting in September, the finance ministry proposed the Government extend value-added tax payments by three more months and the deadline for corporate tax payments to April 2013, said Mai. The finance ministry is collecting opinions of enterprises on the tax rate of 25% given in the draft amended Corporate Income Tax Law to submit to the National Assembly in November.
vietnamnet
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