Higher tax collection expected in 2016

Hanoi (VNA) – The collection of tax arrears in 2016 would be higher than that of last year, General Director of Taxation Bui Van Nam said.

Statistics from the Taxation Department showed that the collection of arrears in 2015 was 39.1 trillion VND (1.78 billion USD), posting a 27 percent year-on-year rise and surpassed the set target.

Nam said the department planned to reduce tax arrears this year. The taxation sector has been instructed to revise the Circular No 215/2013/TT-BTC, guiding enforcement of tax administrative rulings to overcome shortcomings of tax arrears enforcement and enhancing its effectiveness.

"We will co-operate with police agencies to strictly implement checks on tax arrears," he said.

In addition, he said the tax sector would establish a special team for enforcement of tax arrears collection at the department. It would also submit to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung for approval on a decision to prevent people with tax arrears from leaving the country.

He said they would also enhance awareness on tax collection for people and businesses.

Notably, the sector would continue to have warnings and publish information of businesses which have tax arrears.

Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung has said that 34 trillion VND (1.55 billion USD) out of 76 trillion VND (3.45 billion USD) tax arrears by the end of 2015 came from enterprises which did not want to pay tax despite having the financial ability to do so.

Dung was certain to collect 1.5 billion USD while the real collection could go up to 1.7 billion USD – much higher than the set target.

In July, the list of 600 firms with tax arrears in 63 provinces and cities was announced. The number of businesses in Hanoi and HCM City accounted for one-third of the total with tax arrears of 3.5 trillion VND (159.1 million USD) and 4.6 trillion VND (209.1 million USD) respectively.

He said tax agencies have applied several solutions to improve the collection of tax arrears including sending announcement to companies, halting their invoices and publishing their information.

They have also co-operated with banking systems in cities and provinces with regard to frozen accounts of firms.

The tax sector has also striven to reduce the total time for tax payment to 117 hours in 2015 or 50 hours lower than that of 2014.-VNA