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The Tax Authority will study and propose appropriate solutions for exit suspension due to tax debts to support taxpayers. Photo: ST

Collecting VND1,844 billion from exit suspension measures

According to the General Department of Taxation, the regulations on exit suspension for those that have not fulfilled their tax payment obligations have been stipulated in the Law on Tax Administration. Since the end of 2023, the Tax sector has promoted the application of special exit suspension measures for those abandoning registered business addresses because their tax debt amount nationwide is quite large (VND 15,602 billion).

For cases of temporary exit suspension, the Tax authority has reviewed, compared, and accurately determined the tax payment obligations of taxpayers subject to exit suspension before sending a "Notice of exit suspension" to the immigration management agency and the taxpayer so that the taxpayer is notified and completes his tax obligations before leaving the country.

According to the General Department of Taxation, the Tax sector has deployed many information channels to notify, remind, and warn taxpayers about their tax obligations, so taxpayers with tax debts must be responsible for fulfilling their tax obligations.

In reality, many individuals, upon learning about the tax authorities' measures to urge tax debt collection, especially the regulations on temporary suspension of exit through the mass media, have voluntarily paid their tax debts from many years ago. Many enterprises have focused on arranging financial resources to fulfill their tax obligations in order to have their suspension of exit cancelled.

Regarding the measure of temporary suspension of exit due to tax debts, Mr. Mai Xuan Thanh, General Director of the General Department of Taxation, affirmed that the Tax sector is acting in accordance with the law. "The temporary suspension of exit has brought about clear results, helping to improve taxpayers' compliance with tax laws.

According to statistics, there have been nearly 24,000 cases of suspension of exit with tax arrears of over VND50,000 billion, the collected tax amount has reached nearly VND2,000 billion. Through this measure, the tax agency discovered nearly 8,000 cases of abandoning business addresses while still owing taxes," said Mr. Mai Xuan Thanh.

According to data from the General Department of Taxation, from the end of 2023 to September 2024, the Tax authority has collected VND1,844 billion from 2,873 taxpayers who are currently suspended from exit, not to mention the tax debts the Tax authority has collected from taxpayers who proactively paid when they were not suspended from exit.

The figure of VND 1,844 billion has shown the effectiveness in implementing legal regulations in tax debt management that the Tax sector has deployed, because the collected amount is greater than the total revenue of the two localities with low revenue.

Proposing a tax debt threshold appropriate for each tax debtor

Despite many positive results in tax debt management, the General Department of Taxation also said that during the implementation process, the Tax sector has received opinions from enterprises and taxpayers that there were shortcomings in implementing the measure of suspension from exit.

Some typical shortcomings are: when temporarily suspending the exit of the legal representative, the Tax authority received opinions that the legal representative may be just an employee for the enterprise, but the owner or shareholder of the enterprise.

However, according to the provisions of the current Enterprise Law, the legal representative of an enterprise is an individual who represents the enterprise in exercising the rights and obligations arising from the enterprise's transactions, and represents the enterprise in exercising the rights and obligations as prescribed by law.

Therefore, the General Department of Taxation believes that considering which entity is actually responsible for the debt, whether it is the legal representative or the owner or the shareholder is a content that needs to be considered and studied.

Another shortcoming is that current regulations do not have specific regulations on the tax debt level subject to temporary exit suspension during the implementation of temporary exit suspension.

Clause 2, Article 21 of Decree 126 stipulates that "The authority to impose exit suspension..." is " The head of the supervisory tax authority of the taxpayer ".

Therefore, the head of the tax supervisory authority shall base on the actual situation and tax administration work in the area to decide on applying exit suspension measures for each specific tax debt case.

The General Department of Taxation will absorb and focus on researching and reporting to competent authorities on the appropriate tax debt level for each tax debt entity in applying exit suspension measures.

According to the General Department of Taxation, enterprises and taxpayers believe that the regulations on subjects suspended from exiting the country are not considered to be favorable for enterprises and taxpayers who are facing temporary financial difficulties, and they expect the tax agency to consider amending and supplementing these regulations to meet the reality.

The General Department of Taxation will review the regulations on subjects suspended from exiting the country in the Law on Tax Administration and Decree No. 126/2020/ND-CP and related legal provisions to ensure fairness and support for taxpayers in difficulty to maintain production and business activities.

With the shortcomings in the implementation, Mr. Mai Xuan Thanh said that the Ministry of Finance is currently proposing to amend and supplement the Law on Tax Administration.

During the process of amending the Law, the Tax authority will review, research and propose appropriate solutions to remove difficulties for taxpayers.