Tax losses due to an epidemic of trading without invoices: Artical 1- Disclosure and daily occurrence

	Customs doesn’t request enterprises to lodge invoices at the seaport
	Extend the time of pilot electronic invoices with validation codes
	Hanoi Taxation Department destroyed a ring of illegal trade of VAT invoices

Ignoring the customer's invoice iscommon situation in the field of catering. Picture: NguyễnHuế

According to the research of the reporter, sales without invoice is very popular and open in most business sectors, from restaurants, hotels, to material trading, electronics, and electrical appliances sales.

After eating seafood in a restaurant inBinhThanh district, HCMC, the cost was 500,000vnd, the cashier was asked about an invoice, this employee said that in order to have an invoice, the customer must incur additional VAT. AtHaiChau restaurant on Pham Van Dong Street, Thu Duc district, when we asked for the bill for food of more than 1 million vnd, the staff asked us to pay 10% VAT, when we asked why, the salesman said it was the service charge for processing which must be paid by customers.Also at a computer shop on Ton That Tung Street, District 1, HCMC, my friend after completing procedures to buy a Macbook laptop worth nearly 30 millionvnd, asked fora VAT invoice , the staff replied, "Stores will make out bills with the conditions of charging 10% VAT on this product, which means you will have to pay nearly 3 million vnd extra. Without invoice, customers do not have to pay more! ". Similarly, an electronics shop on Nguyen Van Troi Street, District 3 openly selling goods with no tax as a tax refund tacticsto lure customers .

The cases above are typical examples on the violating regulations in the VAT invoice of trading goods and services which are a daily occurrence in most commercial businesses, not only in Ho Chi Minh city but across the country. As noted by this reporter, sales without invoices for goods and services worth more than 200,000vnd are common not only in dining spots, restaurants, hotels, but also popular in many business sectors such as selling building materials, electronic products, electrical machinery, and the petroleum business. At many catering business points in Ho Chi Minh city, when paying for visitors even for payments up to millions of vnd, very few places mention about the invoice for customers.

One example of not making out invoices to evade tax is the hotel business. Compared to the dining business, tax evasion in business activities of accommodation services is rather easy because the cost prices of the hotel business is insignificant so that legitimizing the input output without invoices is not difficult for these business locations.

For the business areas of construction materials, though, when purchasing supplies, people and the construction company were obviously subject to VAT even getting receiving an invoice or not, depending on the need. It is noteworthy that most of the business units in this area also do not mention bills to the customer. In fact there are only a few large companies such as Hocim Cement, Pomina Steel, Japan-Vietnam Steel, Hala Pile Centrifugal that were forced to calculate the VAT and make out invoices for customers. If customers do not wish to get an invoice, these units still require customers to provide information for the billing. Most smaller units ignore the step of making out invoices and only give customers handwritten retail invoices for statistical basis of input costs.Similarly, in the field of electronics, electrical appliances business, only some large, professional distribution systems seriously implement the provisions of invoices, and tax documents of tax authorities. The majority of remaining small electronics stores scattered across the main roads of the city are ignoring making out invoices for customers. This is also the general status at electronics selling points around the area of Bui ThiXuan Street, Ton That Tung Street, District 1, and Nguyen DinhChieu Street, District 3.

The working group established for handling enterprises illegally printing and trading invoices VCN- Recently, some enterprises have printed, issued and traded invoices illegally to earn illicit profits, causing losses ...

Along with the development of information technology, the explosion of the online sales is also creating conditions for business establishments to openly evade tax in the form of sales without invoices. This is also a challenge to tax agencies in managing revenues for these services.