More than VND 334 trillion of domestic taxes are paid electronically

Ho Chi Minh City: Domestic tax debt increases more than VND8,000 billion

In the half of 2020, more than 2 million tax payment transactions into the State budget were received via the General Department of Taxation’s portal. Photo: T.L

More than 2 million e-tax payment transactions

According to the General Department of Taxation, as of June 30, the country had 780,109 operating enterprises, up by 22,576 compared to the end of 2019.

The General Department of Taxation has promoted information technology useand wide ranging deployment of tax declaration support services and electronic tax services based on new architecture and technology with many utilities, and assisted taxpayers in implementing accurate tax declarations.

At the same time, it has focused on reviewing taxpayers' information on application and promptly requesting taxpayers add the changed information and send it to tax authorities to update information for tax administration.

Currently, the rate of submitted tax declaration form has hit96% of the total number of submittable tax declaration forms; the rate of declaration forms in timely submission reached 96% of the total number of submitted declaration forms.

The General Department of Taxation also said in the first half of 2020, more than 2 million tax payment transactions were received into the State budget via its portal with the amount of more than VND334 trillion. As of June 30, the number of businesses registered to use electronic tax payment services was 772,548, 99% of the total number of operating businesses.

According to Le Thi Duyen Hai, Director of the Department of Tax Declaration and Accounting, from 2020, in addition to e-tax payment usingthe General Department of Taxation’s portal or e-tax payment service of commercial banks, peoplecan pay tax in a simple and convenient way24/7 via the the National Public Service Portal.

“In the near future, the General Department of Taxation will complete tax collection processes via intermediary payment service providers and expand e-tax payment channels for taxpayers, especially individual tax payers” Hai said.

Notably, in tax administration, the tax sector has strengthened tax administration and strictly controlled the expenditure for VAT refund, ensuring tax refunds to the right taxpayers and in accordance with law.

By the end of June 30, the tax authority issued 10,490 decisions on tax refund with the total refunded amount of VND 61,498.6 billion (47.3% of the estimate approved by the National Assembly).

Continue to deploy e-tax registration service

From the end of 2019, the General Department of Taxation has askedtax departments to receive and return the results of applications for e-tax registration and assigned targets to deploy e-tax registration service at each tax office.

According to the Department of Tax Declaration and Accounting, as of June 30, the country has 286,677 applications for e-tax registration of a total 601,015 tax registration applications received by tax authorities, accounting for 47.7%.

According to Hai, only 16 localities have completed assigned targets, including Lai Chau (100%), Quang Binh (87.02%), Thai Nguyen (81.59%), Ha Tinh (80.77%), Binh Duong (78.66%), Hai Phong (78.21%). Particularly, Hanoi and HCM City nearly completed their targets, specifically Hanoi reached 55.53%, HCM City reached 50.84%.

Hai said the rate of applications for invalidation of tax code, for business suspension/resume of business prior to the deadline after business suspension and applications for restoration of e-tax code is low.

One of the reasons is that implementation of e-tax registration service for business households and business individuals still faces difficulties due to specific characteristics of this group of taxpayers that they do not want to change the method of submission, so rate of deployment of e-tax registration service for this group is low. This is also a challenge for tax authorities in implementing e-tax registration service in the near future.

Moreover, implementation of e-tax registration service for other organisations without digital signatures is also not feasible (this group has not implemented e-tax declaration and payment).

“In order to accomplish the target of implementing registration for e-tax payment, in the near future, tax authorities need to have solutions to overcome the shortcomings and limitations of the first six months of 2020 such as promoting publicity and instructions for taxpayers in implementing e-tax registration services, ensuring 100% of taxpayers as economic organisations or other organisations with digital signatures must submit applications for e-tax registration to tax authorities; maximum support for groups of taxpayers who are business households and business individuals to submit applications for e-tax payment and publicise to organisations that do not have digital signatures to register digital signatures according to regulations to deploy e-tax registration service,” Hai said.