Draft Law on Tax Administration (amended) must ensure consistency with relevant laws

The Law on Tax Administration (Amendment) has been included in the legislative program of the XIV of the National Assembly. According to the plan, by the end of August, the bill will be submitted to the Government, in September will coordinate with the Budget Committee of the National Assembly for evaluation, then report to the Standing Committee Congress. The project will be submitted to the National Assembly at the end of this year and the National Assembly will give its second opinion in the next session. It is expected that the Law on Tax Administration (amended) will take effect from 1/1/2020.

The General Department of Taxation and the Ministry of Finance have just announced the draft law on tax administration (revised) - an important law in the management of state budget revenues. According to you, is this time appropriate to amend the Law?

The Law on Tax Administration was passed by the National Assembly on November 29, 2006, effective from July 1, 2007. After 3 amendments and supplements, the Law on Tax Management has created a basic legal framework for unifying the policy of tax collection management in line with tax laws and international practices. Existing laws play an important role in synchronizing and enhancing transparency, enhancing the role of State and social inspection and supervision in tax administration; to create favorable conditions for taxpayers to abide by tax law and voluntarily pay tax amounts fully and promptly into the state budget.

However, with the continuous development of economic institutions, the Law on Tax Administration has gradually exposed inadequacies due to it having been written more than 10 years. The regulations on tax administration have not changed in time with the change of policy in each tax law. At the same time, during the implementation of tax collection management, regulations relating to the management of tax receipts that have been changed or promulgated, have not yet been regulated in the Law on Tax Administration. The limitation in the organization of tax collection does not cover all revenue sources for the expansion of the tax base. Moreover, the regulation on the development and application of information technology in tax administration, despite its promulgation, it has not kept up with the development practice of global trade transactions. The target has not been supported to modernize the tax authority.

In line with the management practice of the State as well as the market economy in the current context, the amendment of the Tax Administration Law is necessary and should be implemented soon.

The draft Law on Tax Administration (amended) has amended and supplemented quite a lot of content to be in line with the management practice of the tax office. How do you rate these changes?

I highly appreciate the draft Tax Administration Law (amended) by the General Department of Taxation. The draft is based on the principle of "formality determination" with regulations to reform administrative procedures; Reform of tax administration procedures towards simple, clear, open, convenient and consistent manner; implementing electronic tax administration, tax administration in a risk-based manner, protecting taxpayers' interests and creating favorable conditions for taxpayers to abide by tax law and promptly pay in time tax money into the state budget.

These provisions are amended and supplemented with a view to contributing to the strategy of international integration and international economic integration of the Party and the State. At the same time, it is in line with international standards on taxation and preparation of legal basis for integration in the coming period.

I think this draft facilitates taxpayers through clearer, more transparent regulations. For example, the current provision is that late tax finalization will be fined, but with these draft regulations at this time, if tax finalization is delayed due to no tax refund, or due to incomplete procedures to receive tax refund ... all of the cases will not be fined. Or if there are cases in a unit that overpaid an amount, the other pays the deficit, the extra party does not count but the fines are administered. These points are also dealt with in the new draft law.

Another example of creating favorable conditions for enterprises is that in cases where enterprises are wrong in terms of data due to documents issued by tax authorities and not from enterprises, enterprises will not be fined for late payment.

The reality is that the Law on Tax Administration is facing many shortcomings and overlapping with other laws. This is not only a story of the Tax Administration Law, but also many other laws. So what does the drafting agency do to overcome these problems?

In fact, one law is more or less related to other laws and needs to be uniform. While drafting this Law, most businesses and related agencies such as Auditing and Accounting, have all voiced their support. However, when building a law, it cannot avoid dissent.

In order for the revised and promulgated Tax Administration Law to be amended, it is necessary to supplement inter-disciplinary authorities’ procedures and comments to ensure transparency and agreement in the implementation process. When doing so, the "understanding" between tax authorities, taxpayers and related agencies must be consistent. This will avoid the fact that each agency understands differently, which will make it difficult to manage taxes.

With this draft, I think that the Law on Tax Administration (amended) will overcome difficulties arising in the course of implementing the Law on Tax Administration in the past time. To overcome inadequacies and overlaps in the legal system on tax administration and ensure the uniformity with relevant laws; to ensure the feasibility, transparency and convenience for implementing organizations.

Thank you very much!