Enterprises need to proactively monitor tax debts to avoid enforcement

Deputy Head of Import-Export Tax Division, HCM City Customs Department Truong Thanh Xuan

Could you please tell us about the current status of businesses with overdue tax debt at the HCM City Customs Department?

Currently, the total tax debt receivable until June 30, 2024 at the HCM City Customs Department is VND 1,789 billion, reducing VND 132 billion compared to December 31, 2023.

Regarding debt structure, mainly tax debt arose before the Tax Administration Law 2019 took effect (accounting for 91% of total debt). New debt arising in 2024 is less than VND 7 billion, accounting for 0.012% of state budget revenue in the first 6 months of the HCM City Customs Department (6-month budget revenue reached VND 58,787 billion).

In recent times, how has the HCM City Customs Department implemented tax debt recovery solutions and what have been the results, sir?

With the close guidance of the Board of Directors of HCM City Customs Department, the Import-Export Duty Division advised on building a debt handling and recovery plan right from the beginning of the year. In particular, focusing on synchronously and drastically implementing measures to urge, enforce, and organize the collection and handling of tax debt in accordance with regulations, meeting the goal of social equity among payers. tax in fulfilling obligations to the State.

At the same time, the affiliated customs branches should base on the actual situation at the unit, have developed detailed plans and closely monitored debts; prepare debt records as soon as tax debt first arises, coordinate synchronously and continuously with many measures to urge, enforce... to collect debt.

At the same time, the Department built Tax Debt Management software on the HCM City Customs Administration System (HCAS), with the goal of modernizing the management of tax debt and other revenues at the HCM City Customs Department automatically, accurately, comprehensively, proactively anytime, anywhere. At the same time, helping civil servants at Customs Branch and the Import-Export Duty Division have a fast, effective, and synchronous support tool in tax debt management.

In addition, the Department also strengthens connections with Tax agencies, Police agencies, business registration agencies, local authorities, State Bank, Courts,... to be able to control the group of enterprises that owed tax debt stop operating and do not fulfill their tax obligations to the State. The legal representative of the debtor enterprise wishes to register a new business or flee... through development partnership programs between parties, building an information technology system that connects, shares, and integrates information and data in accordance with the information system conditions of each agency, each ministry, sector...

With synchronous solutions, the total debt collection debt arising before 2024 recovered and processed by the HCM City Customs Department in the first 6 months of 2024 is over VND 185.4 billion, reaching 78.96% of the debt recovery target 2024 as assigned. This is the highest rate of tax debt recovery and settlement in recent years that HCM City Customs Department has achieved.

In addition to the seven measures to enforce tax debt recovery under the Law on Tax Administration, how do you evaluate the measure to suspend the exit of legal representatives of businesses with tax debt in 2023 and the first 6 months of 2024?

Besides seven enforcement measures prescribed in Article 125 of the Law on Tax Administration, the Department also applies the measure "Temporary exit suspension" for individuals who are legal representatives of businesses that owe tax.

According to the current law, there is no regulation on the minimum amount of tax debt to be applied to postpone exit, but during the implementation process, HCM City Customs Department also selects cases with large tax debts or debts that have been delay to pay for a long time, have issued debt notices to urge many times, applied enforcement measures but have not been effective in debt collection... to suspend exit in advance.

The measure of temporarily suspending the exit of legal representatives of businesses owing tax debt is one of the tough enforcement measures to help collect tax debt effectively. For example, in the case of a business that owes more than VND 7 billion in taxes since 2004 and another case that owes more than VND 1.7 billion since 1999, they also paid taxes to the state budget after the business owner was issued a notice on temporary exit suspension by HCM City Customs.

To avoid legal risks, what do you note for businesses in monitoring and fulfilling tax obligations to the state?

To avoid legal risks due to tax debt, businesses need to proactively research and grasp regulations in import and export activities, aiming to voluntarily comply with the law, including customs law and law on import and export tax.

Proactively grasp the tax debt situation, monitor tax debt lookup information on the website of the General Department of Vietnam Customs and information that the Customs agency publicly posts the list of businesses owing tax debt to fulfill tax obligations, avoid being applied coercive measures.