Encourage enterprises to embrace electronic tax refund and invoice

The view of the conference. Photo: TL.

Speaking at the press conference, Mr. Nguyen Dai Tri, Deputy General Director of the General Department of Taxation, said that sticking with the schedule to implement Resolution 36a / NQ-CP of the Government as well as Resolution 19/NQ-CP in recent years, the General Department of Taxation has concretized action plans with the purpose to focus on the reform of administrative procedures, shortening the process, and standardize, reduce and simplify the content of profiles for handling electronic records.

Simultaneously, the General Department of Taxation also has innovative solutions, enhance the application of information technology in management, publicity and transparency of State management activities of the General Department of Taxation in the network environment. Also, improve the quality and efficiency of the General Department of Taxation’s operation in order to serve people and enterprises. The deployment of electronic services included VAT refund and invoice services are one of the solutions.

"About electronic tax refund, according to the schedule, till November 2016, it was piloted in the local areas first. Then based on the assessment process and application, we will deploy on a large scale in 2017. For electronic invoicing, we are completing projects which were assigned by the Ministry of Finance about the implementation of this service. In fact, we are also deploying at different levels by different measures.

"Besides that, for the electronic invoice with identification code, since the end of 2015 we have completed professional processes and piloting of the program in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with more than 200 companies. Through the pilot operation, we have recorded 2.3 million invoices issued with a value of 17,500 billion VND and a tax payment about 800 billion VND, "said Nguyen Dai Tri shared.

Electronic tax refund will be assessed according to the process

Mrs. Le Thi Duyen Hai, Director of Accounting and Tax Declaration, said that the deployment of electronic VAT refund services is in the chain of tax reform and in the plan of improving the business environment, and enhance national competitiveness through Resolution 19-2016/NQ-CP and Resolution 36a/NQ-CP. With the aim to simplify tax refund procedures for taxpayers, facilitate taxpayers to comply with tax laws, as well as publicity and transparency in resolving tax refund at all levels of tax agency, in 2016, the General Department of Taxation piloted electronic tax refunds in 13 provinces and cities such as Hanoi, HCMC, Hai Phong, Dong Nai, Binh Duong ...

According to Mrs. Le Thi Duyen Hai, export tax refund and investment projects eligible for tax refund that meet the criteria set out by the General Department of Taxation, will get priority to piloted tax refund. The receiving of tax refund dossiers, and returning results for tax reimbursement to taxpayers will be done via the electronic portal of the General Department of Taxation.

Currently, the General Department of Taxation has deployed to establish and upgrade the related applications to meet the requirement of receiving electronic reimbursement dossiers. Along with that, in legal terms, the General Department of Taxation has proposed to the Ministry of Finance to issue Circular No. 11/2015/TT-BTC guiding electronic transactions in the field of Taxation and Circular 99/2016/TT BTC providing guidelines on the management of VAT refund.

Mrs. Le Thi Duyen Hai also asserted that, to ensure accuracy and fairness, the electronic tax refund will be evaluated and checked in accordance with professional processes to minimize mistakes.

Not difficult to produce electronic invoices

Mr. Nguyen Van Thuy, Deputy Director of Tax Administration, said that catching up with the trend in the world, in recent years, in Vietnam, electronic invoices have been used in many companies. The implementation of electronic invoice and electronic invoice with identification code have brought many benefits for both taxpayers and tax agencies such as: Limiting fake invoices, protect reputation and credibility of the enterprises; shorten the management process of enterprises’ invoices, simplify administrative procedures; to facilitate the management agencies to collect all transaction documents. Moreover, the use of electronic invoices and electronic invoices with authentication codes not only reduces costs for enterprises, but also reduces costs for State management agencies in managing the release of announcements, easily retrieving statistics on the system.

As for electronic invoices with authentication code, Tax agencies are currently piloted at more than 200 enterprises in Hanoi and HCMC. According to Mr Nguyen Van Thuy, implementing electronic invoice has initially brought practical effects of time and cost savings for the enterprises and society.

However, he also admitted that, in fact, the implementation of electronic invoices have more difficulties because it not only requires the legal basis but also requires technical equipment and information technology infrastructure of authorities and enterprises. In addition, one more factor is that the psychology of the business community and customers still want to use paper invoices for easy checking and circulation of goods.

"In fact there are many situations where enterprises were asked to show invoice by the authorities. With the electronic invoice, it’s hard to show immediately in order to prove the origin of goods. Thus, the problems of investing in equipment and machines to serve for electronic invoice service still may be a barrier for enterprises in approaching the services, " Mr. Thuy said.

However, Mr. Nguyen Van Phung, Director of Tax Administration confirmed that checking of electronic invoices can be done by smart devices such as mobile phones or computer. In addition, currently, some companies have transparency by publicizing all sales invoices on the website of the company.

Mr Phung also stated that, there is a need for relevant authorities such as Market Management, Police, Traffic, Register in order to help enterprises and society approach the electronic invoice. The Government has also instructed departments to join electronic invoice implementation. So it is not difficult to prove the origin of the goods while transporting on the road.