Hanoi (VNA) — The Government has issued Decree No. 373/2025/ND-CP, introducing a series of important changes aimed at streamlining administrative procedures and facilitating tax compliance for individuals and businesses.
The new regulation, which amends several provisions of Decree No. 126/2020/ND-CP detailing the Law on Tax Administration, is expected to address practical bottlenecks while creating a more transparent legal framework for both tax authorities and taxpayers. The decree will take effect on February 14, 2026.
To ensure smooth implementation, the Department of Taxation has instructed subordinate units to disseminate key contents of the decree and promote awareness among tax officials and the taxpayer community. This preparatory work aims to guarantee feasibility and continuity once the new rules come into force.
One notable reform focuses on optimising tax declaration and settlement procedures. Under previous regulations, taxpayers who mistakenly filed quarterly returns despite not meeting the required conditions had to submit additional documents to determine the increased monthly tax payable, even though they were not required to resubmit monthly returns for earlier quarters. The new decree abolishes this intermediate step. Instead, affected taxpayers are required to switch to monthly declarations from the first month of the following quarter, resubmit the relevant monthly returns for prior periods, and calculate late-payment interest in accordance with regulations. Importantly, they will not face administrative penalties for the late submission of these replacement returns, which are considered substitutes for the previously filed quarterly dossiers.
The decree also simplifies personal income tax finalisation for individuals earning income from multiple sources. Taxpayers will now submit their finalisation dossiers to the tax authority overseeing the organisation that paid them the highest income during the year. If several income sources are equal in value, individuals may choose one of the corresponding tax offices. In addition, an automatic dossier transfer mechanism has been introduced. If a taxpayer submits documents to the wrong office, the receiving tax authority will proactively redirect the file to the appropriate agency using the sector’s integrated data system. This innovation reduces administrative burdens and reflects the tax administration’s service-oriented approach.
In an effort to improve the investment climate, the decree substantially cuts administrative barriers by simplifying forms and dossier components. In the field of special consumption tax, taxpayers will now use a single declaration form regardless of production type. Similarly, corporate income tax finalisation procedures have been streamlined through the removal of several sector-specific appendices previously required for industries such as banking and securities. For salaried individuals, supporting documents on tax withholding are no longer necessary if electronic data have already been transmitted to tax authorities.
Significant reforms have also been introduced in real estate taxation. The timeframe for tax authorities to issue personal income tax payment notices related to property transfers, inheritance, or gifts has been shortened from five working days to three. Certain notarised copies of identification documents and contracts have been eliminated or replaced with digitalised versions. In addition, a new declaration form for non-agricultural land-use tax integrates tax exemption and reduction procedures into a single process.
For enterprises engaged in related-party transactions, Decree 373 simplifies advance pricing agreement (APA) procedures by replacing multiple complex forms with a single application template. Reporting obligations have also been reduced, with requirements for annual APA reports and ad hoc submissions within 30 days of significant events abolished. Companies will instead provide general notifications to tax authorities when material changes affect business performance or APA implementation.
The decree promotes legal consistency, aligning provisions on land-use and land-rental charges with existing regulations and transferring full responsibility for calculating land-use fees in economic and high-tech zones to tax authorities. In specialised sectors such as oil and gas, several tax declaration forms have been consolidated into a single dossier to facilitate monitoring and reduce administrative workload. Transitional provisions allow businesses sufficient time to train systems and personnel before the new procedures are fully applied./.
