Businesses debate thorny taxation issues
Businesses debate thorny taxation issues
Representatives from 600 local businesses, along with experts at the Finance Ministry and the Viet Nam Chamber of Industry and Commerce (VCCI), met at a conference in HCM City last Thursday to discuss several contentious issues, including VAT return procedures, tax reductions for property firms, corporate tax reductions and e-customs formalities.
Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the HCM City Property Association, first pointed out that the new incentives had benefited firms, as they can now offer a 50 per cent VAT reduction on house rentals and sales of houses of under 70 sq.m and priced at under VND15 million per sq.m.
He also lauded a 10 per cent cut in corporate income tax for developers of projects for poor residents.
Nguyen Van Be, deputy chairman of the Association of HCM City's IP Enterprises, also praised the new e-customs but noted that transmission lines remained slow and unstable.
Business executives at the meeting, however, decried the harassment they suffered from tax and customs officers, pointing at conflicting views among State agencies, which confuses companies about how to best perform procedures.
Nguyen Viet Hung, an executive in charge of export sales at the HCM City-based private company Minh Luan (which imports secondhand tractors from Japan and repairs them before re-exporting them), criticised the different views among tax officers on giving tax refunds or not to companies.
Before engaging in business, for example, Minh Luan was informed by the Management and Supervision Department of the General Customs Department that the company was allowed tax refunds, but the Import-Export Tax Department later said such commodities were not subject to tax refunds.
Duy Anh Fashion and Cosmetic Co. complained that last November it filed forms to get tax refunds of VND25 billion.
Its applications were assessed twice by the tax authorities, he said. However, the company recently received a reply that no tax refund was given because of the company's large stockpile of commodities.
Responding to the complaints, Deputy Minister of Finance Do Hoang Anh Tuan admitted that local customs and tax agencies had not addressed issues faced by enterprises.
In the case of Minh Luan that imports tractors for re-export, the instruction from the Management and Supervision Department was correct, said Tuan. He ordered that the Import-Export Tax Department quickly refund taxes to Minh Luan.
Similarly, Duy Anh should also receive tax refunds quickly and agencies would have to pay the interest for any delayed refunds, said Tuan.
He explained that the regulation on cancelling tax refunds for large stockpiles would take effect next year.
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