Many "tricks" to cheat e-invoices

	Prevent and handle sale of e-invoices on social networks
	Cases of illegal invoice trading detected
	Use of e-invoices generated from cash registers expanded

Photo: N. Trang

Many unusual signs

As noted by some tax authorities, recently, the issue of invoices of some businesses has shown signs of abnormality. Typically, at the Tax Department of Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City, through reviewing the electronic invoices of businesses in the district, the unit discovered that a bird's nest company within 7 days had issued an invoice worth 34,000 billion VND (equivalent to nearly 1.5 billion USD).

The director of Binh Thanh District Tax Department Dang Khac Phuc said that in order to generate this huge amount of revenue, businesses had issued invoices day and night. What is more unusual is that when checking, the unit discovered that in the total value of invoices that this company had issued, only 40 million VND of bird's nest business invoices, the rest were invoices exported to the stock market. Binh Thanh Tax Department has reported to the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department and General Department of Taxation to check and handle the use of invoices of this bird's nest company.

According to Mr. Dang Khac Phuc, Binh Thanh district currently manages 22,000 businesses, 16,000 business households, and individuals. Only from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, more than 17.8 million e-invoices with authentication codes of tax authorities were issued to buyers, while the number of e-invoices without codes was 453,000. This shows that the number of invoices is very large and diverse in industries, fields, and business forms, so there have been a series of risks for buyers using illegal e-invoices, as well as objects selling illegal e-invoices. In addition to real business and production enterprises, many businesses that want to make profits outside of production take illegal invoices to pay less tax or evade taxes.

The "holes" need to be closed

According to experts, some individuals exploit the loopholes in the issuance of business registration, whereby just using the identification papers of any individual can register a business representative without having to prove identity, address of the head office or business establishment, etc.

Sharing with reporters, Director of Thu Duc City Tax Sub-Department Phan Van Dung said that taking advantage of the openness in business establishment procedures, the subjects used the lost/stolen citizen identities of individuals, hired uninformed people as legal representatives, etc to establish businesses, business chains or acquire operating businesses to register businesses. This creates a loophole for those who set up "ghost" businesses to buy and sell invoices around without actual transactions.

For example, in Thu Duc city, there are currently 103 "ghost" businesses on the list of 524 businesses selling illegal invoices and fake invoices according to statistics of the General Department of Taxation in Official Dispatch 1798/TCT-TTKT dated May 16, 2023. Through the actual inspection of the Tax Sub-Department of Thu Duc City, 103 of these businesses are no longer operating at the registered business address. In which, there are many cases where businesses use "tricks" to register a "virtual" business address with the wrong house number, wrong ward name, etc, making the management of the authorities difficult because the information is not real.

Recently, through reviewing violations for H.B.Q Construction Co., Ltd., located in Hiep Binh Chanh ward, Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City, it is known that this company used the citizen identity of Mrs. T.T.Y.N, a resident in Tan An commune, Vinh Cuu district, Dong Nai province. Working with Ms. T.T.Y.N, said that she did not register a business, establish a business, declare taxes with the tax authority, and do not open a bank account related to this business. At the same time, she did not stamp her name on the VAT invoice and did not know anything about the submission of tax returns and tax records, did not operate the management, and did not receive any income related to the business mentioned above.

As of July 20, the unit has conducted a review of 2,768 businesses that have purchased invoices related to 103 businesses that buy and sell illegal invoices and fake invoices. The unit has made VAT refunds for 982 enterprises with 1,320 invoices. The total amount of VAT payable to the budget is nearly 24 billion VND, the amount of deduction is over 12.4 billion VND, the amount of cost reduction is over 185 billion VND and the amount of corporate income tax arrears is nearly 26 billion VND. Currently, the unit is continuing to collect taxes and sanction businesses according to regulations.

Speaking at the tax review conference in the first 6 months of 2023 of the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department recently, Mr. Phi Van Tuan, Deputy Director of the General Department of Taxation, said that new tax crimes are increasing rapidly and strongly. Accordingly, the tax industry needs to have propaganda measures to make businesses better aware of tax evasion.

In addition, the Tax Department will coordinate with the police to clarify a number of cases and illegal invoice trading lines. In the near future, the tax department's leaders are proposing to the management agency to agree on a plan to deal with businesses that use invoices from the 524 "ghost" business line trading illegal invoices.

In the first 6 months of 2023, the Tax Department of Ho Chi Minh City carried out 5,907 inspections and audits at enterprises and checked 47,373 tax declaration dossiers at tax offices. The total amount proposed to be handled through inspection and examination is VND 6,868.7 billion. In addition, the Tax Department of Ho Chi Minh City has strengthened the work of reviewing and handling tax with illegal acts of buying and selling invoices. The unit has issued notices to more than 21,000 businesses to review and clarify the use of invoices related to businesses that the authorities are handling about illegal buying and selling of invoices.