Enterprise satisfaction with tax authorities is increasing

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Deputy Minister of Finance Tran Xuan Ha spoke at the conference. Photo TL

Reporting on the survey results regarding satisfaction with tax in 2019, Dau Anh Tuan, Head of the Legal Department of the VCCI said that overthe past five years (from 2014-2019), the efforts of the Ministry of Finance andGeneral Department of Taxation in reforming and simplifying tax administration policies and procedures have brought many practical benefits, saving time and labour for businesses and been appreciated by the business community. As a result, the enterprise’s satisfaction in 2019 is 7.79 points (rounded to 7.8 points), equivalent to 78 percent, an increase of 3percent over 2016.

More specifically, Mr. Tuan said, in terms of access to information on tax administrative procedures, the information access has been relatively easy; the system of tax administrative procedure forms has been maintained from 2016 up to now, contributing to facilitatinginformation access for businesses, helping them adapt, look up, search and complete the necessary tax procedures quickly. "Compared with results of indicators in 2016, there arethree indicators increasing, of which the most important is the‘Service of Tax Officials’, whichsaw an increase of about 1.5 points. The two component indicators‘Access to Information’ and ‘Results of operation’, whichgained more positive results,up 0.23 points and 0.41 points respectively compared to 2016. The two indicators witha slight decline were‘Implementing tax administrative procedures’ (down 0.14 points) and ‘Tax inspection and examination’ (down 0.58 points) compared to 2016,"Dau Anh Tuan said.

Notably, in terms of tax inspection, VCCI said that the survey results in 2019 showed that, on average, 43 percent of businesses said they welcomed tax inspectors. The inspection time was in line with the announced decision (94 percent), businesses explained to the tax inspectors about unknown issues before the tax inspection results were announced (93 percent), service attitude of tax officials during the time working at enterprises (90 percent) were good, the inspection activities did not hinder the normal operation of enterprises (89 percent), and inspection yearwas notduplicated (80 percent).

In particular, the indicator‘Service of Tax Officials’ in 2019 was assessed by the enterprises to have more positive changes than previous surveys (2014: 5.36 points; 2016: 6.36 points; 2019: 7.86 points). All three aspects: discipline and working style of tax officials, the satisfaction with tax officials in each unit of the tax authorities and costs outside those prescribed in the implementation of tax administrative procedures received positive feedback.

Ministry of Finance as a pioneer

According to Deputy Minister of Finance Tran Xuan Ha, implementing the administrative reform program, the Government's Resolutions on tasks and solutions to improve the business environment, enhance national competitiveness and support business development to 2020, the Ministry of Finance has developed a drastic and synchronous action plan and organized the unified implementation in the whole sector, especially in the Tax system, with many strong solutions with the aim of reducing tax compliance time and costs for people and businesses, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of tax administration.

Enterprises are more and more satisfied with the reform of the Tax agency. Ảnh TL

Thanks to those efforts, the World Bank's Doing Business Report assessed that in 2020, Vietnam's tax payment time would reduce by 300 hours compared to 2014 and 114 hours compared to 2019; the number of times of tax payment would be recorded as a decrease of 15 times compared to 2014 and four times compared to 2019; ranking of tax payment index increased by 64 places from 2015 to 2019 (from 173th to 109/190).The Ministry of Finance has directed tax authorities to strongly deploy information technology in tax collection and remittance, reducing cost and time and maximizing convenience for enterprises when carrying out tax procedures. Up to now, most tax administrative procedures of enterprises have been handled online, with 133 of 304 administrative procedures provided online at level 3 and level 4. As of October 2019, over 99 percent of businesses participate in electronic tax returns; 99 percent of businesses have coordinated with 52 commercial banks to deploy e-tax payment.A total of 93 percent of businesses participating in e-tax refund.

Speaking at the Conference, Mr. Vu Tien Loc, Chairman of VCCI, said the Ministry of Finance was the first ministry to coordinate with the VCCI to organize surveys on the satisfaction of people and businesses, thereby promoting reform. Therefore, up to this point, there are many pioneers in which the Finance sector is an opening for administrative reform of the Vietnamese Government

Vu Tien Loc also suggested the tax sector should further simplify tax administrative procedures and tax policies. Besides, it is also necessary to continue to improve the application of information technology to serve businesses, avoid the tax application that gives disadvantages for businesses. In the inspection, the tax sector needs to enable enterprises to explain, to listen and to request especially in collection and sanction of enterprises.

“Currently, the most difficult subjects are small businesses, micro enterprises and private enterprises. Taxation should continue to innovate in tax declaration, payment and accounting to make it easier for these people to access policies and be more convenient in fulfilling their obligations to the state budget,” Loc said.