The finance sector detects many violations through inspections

Tax officers at Dong Da Tax Branch under Hanoi Tax Department inspected the compliance with law on invoices at an enterprise’s headquarter. Photo: H. Van

Collecting and paying VND 14.64 trillion to the state budget

The statistics of the whole year 2017 showed that the Finance sector has conducted 99,204 inspections, in which inspecting to prevent transfer pricing, 120 enterprises; examining 899,794 tax returns at the tax offices and investigated and seized 13,813 smuggling cases. Accordingly, proposing financial and administrative sanctions of more than VND 55.47 trillion. The amount paid to the state budget was VND 14.64 trillion.

Many violations in the management and the implementation of fiscal and budgetary policies have also been detected in timely fashion. Typically, in localities, the allocation of budget capital for projects exceeded the prescribed time; capital from provincial budget for some centrally funded targeted projects has not been allocated; the estimated expenditures in capital construction investment was not allocated in line with regulations, causing imbalances and failing to ensure the sources of expenditures. In the financial and budget management of the ministry or branch, the estimation was still later than the prescribed time, the estimates of charge and fee collection assigned to subordinate units was not appropriate; the fund for some irregular expenditures was adjusted without approval of the Ministry of Finance; and some fees and charges were higher than the prescribed rates.

The management of capital construction investment revealed many problems and violations such as: estimation and approval of investment was not accurate; the inaccurate estimation caused reduction of volume of bid-winning prices; the approval of settlement and payment were incorrect; Receiving acceptance of payment increased improperly; the financial management in companies still raised the situation that charter capital increased not in accordance with the actual capital requirements; and the accounting was not accurate., etc.

Also in 2017, through the inspection and examination, the Finance sector requested to review and urge the recovery of tax debts and administrative sanctions for violated cases; made recommendations on reorganizing the management of construction investment capital, survey, design, estimation and bidding, and taking measures to accelerate the implementation of projects; To intensively coordinate with the State Treasury in guiding and confirming the disbursement and balance at the end of the period of the projects funded by the sector to serve as basis for the annual settlement of construction investment capital and settlement of projects which have been done as prescribed. Especially, the inspection units of the Ministry of Finance proposed the relevant ministries, sectors and localities to amend and supplement the procedures and legal documents related to management and administration as well as specific mechanisms and policies of the sectors and localities in line with the law and the local actual situation.

Strengthening risk management

To further promote the efficiency of the inspection and examination of the finance sector in 2018, Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Finance Tran Van Vuong said that there were still many things to do. The first thing was implementing the approved inspection plan 2018 and at the same time ensuring the contingency force for extraordinary inspections in compliance with the provisions of the Law on Inspection.

Besides, taking the initiative in grasping the situation, regularly reporting and proposing solutions to promptly handle problems during the inspection; concentrating on publicizing inspections results; monitoring and urging the implementation of proposals and decisions after inspections as well as clarifying the causes of late and ineffective implementation, thereby recommending recovery measures.

According to Vuong, the coordination and exchange of information between units within the finance sector and between the Ministry of Finance and other competent agencies such as investigation police,the State Bank., etc is an important task to be further strengthened in order to prevent, detect and deal with legal violations, particularly in the field of taxation and the smuggling and illicit trafficking of goods and drugs and addictive substances.

The Ministry of Finance will continue to focus on the implementation of the reform and modernization of tax and Customs inspection and the whole sector; to intensify the development of information technology applications in risk management and software to analyse and classify taxpayers and Customs declarants according to the risk level in order to promptly detect new acts of violations. Accordingly strengthening the inspection and examination to combat acts of fraudulence.

Finally, the Finance Inspectorate system will focus on building a contingent of clean and strong inspectors who can successfully complete the task in the new phase; Strengthening to train the political stability, proficient professional skills and inspection and examination skills for the inspection force to ensure that they are the leading force in preventing, detecting and handling violations in the Finance sector.