Clarifying issue of exit ban for tax debt cases

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The exit ban depends on the specific profile of the taxpayer

According to Mr. Dang Ngoc Minh, this content has been stipulated in the Law on Tax Administration as well as in the Government's decree. The exit ban mainly focuses on legal representatives of legal entities that owe taxes, and is one of the measures to ensure tax debt recovery and prevent delay in tax debt payment.

In addition, for individuals, this measure also applies to Vietnamese people who leave to settle abroad and have not yet fulfilled their tax payment obligations; oversea Vietnamese residents who have not fulfilled their tax payment obligation before leaving the country, and foreigners who have not fulfilled their tax payment obligation before leaving Vietnam.

Deputy Director General of the General Department of Taxation said that the Tax agency has many measures to determine cases of exit ban, which will focus on risky cases, not all cases. Thus, the Tax authority will consider exit ban depending on the specific profile of the taxpayer.

Regarding the order, for normal individuals, the Tax agency will send messages to remind and urge taxpayers. After those measures, if the taxpayer still has not paid the tax debt, the Tax agency will send information to the exit agency to implement temporary exit suspension measures according to regulations. "This process is carried out very strictly," Mr. Minh emphasized.

Currently, the exit suspension notice will be sent directly to taxpayers at the address registered with the Tax authority. However, in some cases, the tax debtor changes their address and does not update the tax authority, so when the tax authority sends the notice, the tax debtor will not receive the notice.

The Tax Department will use the identification code on citizen identification cards as the tax code. At that time, the Tax authority asked all citizens to log in eTax Mobile to proactively update information to standardize data of Tax industry.

Responding to the concerns of many individuals about being subject to exit suspention due to not understanding tax debt, Mr. Dang Ngoc Minh said that the Tax industry has implemented many solutions to support taxpayers, including launching applications to support taxpayers such as the eTax Mobile application. Currently, according to the Tax industry, more than 1 million people have downloaded eTax Mobile and used this application.

For tax finalization with indiviudals with two or more sources of income, eTax Mobile notified that those who have two or more sources must be obliged to self-finalize taxes. In the past three years, if an individual has multiple sources of income, the eTax Mobile application has also supported notification of this issue.

According to the leader of the General Department of Taxation, notifications related to tax obligations will also be sent to this application by the Tax authority, ensuring more timely information. In fact, there are cases where taxpayers do not receive timely notices if they send notices via business addresses, or registered emails because taxpayers change addresses without notifying the Tax authorities.

In addition, a major content that will also be implemented is the conversion of citizen identification numbers into personal tax codes. Through this, the Tax industry also wants taxpayers to update more information to help the Tax industry manage tax better.

Deputy Director General Dang Ngoc Minh said that the General Department of Taxation expects press agencies to continue to provide information about this application so that taxpayers can access and clearly understand the information and obligations of individuals.

It is necessary to proactively look up tax debt before leaving the country

Previously, regarding the information that many individuals were delayed from leaving the country due to tax debt, the General Department of Taxation recommended that taxpayers need to proactively look up tax debt to ensure completion of tax obligations before leaving the country.

According to the General Department of Taxation, according to the provisions of the Law on Tax Administration, if after 30 days from the end of the tax payment deadline, the taxpayer has not paid tax, late payment interest, or fines, the tax agency shall notify the taxpayer of tax debts, fines and the number of days of late payment.

The Law on Tax Administration also stipulates allowing taxpayers to gradually pay tax debt in case of bank guarantee. Thus, the tax authorities have reminded those who accidentally owe taxes to promptly pay taxes and also have a plan to pay gradually for businesses that cannot pay all their debts at once.

Regarding the responsibility to fulfill tax payment obligations in case of exit, the Law on Tax Administration and Decree 126/2020/ND-CP stipulates: cases of temporary exit from the country are individuals, individuals are legal representatives of taxpayers, businesses that are being forced to implement administrative decisions on tax management and have not fulfilled their tax payment obligations, Vietnamese people leaving the country to settle abroad, oversea Vietnamese residents, foreigners must fulfill their obligations before leaving Vietnam

Currently, the number of taxpayers with prolonged tax debt is quite large. Accordingly, in cases of exit ban, tax authorities shall review, compare, and accurately determine the tax payment obligations of taxpayers in the case of exit suspention before sending the Notice of exit suspention to the immigration management agency and taxpayers so that taxpayers can complete their tax payment obligations before leaving the country.

At the same time, taxpayers can proactively look up their tax debt on the Tax industry's system to ensure completion of tax obligations before leaving the country. The exit suspension measure will be a warning measure for taxpayers with tax debt to ensure the completion of tax obligations into the state budget to improve compliance of taxpayers.