Director of the Vietnam Information and Credit Rating Company Le Dinh Quan was sentenced to 28 months in prison at a trial in Hanoi on December 6 for tax fraud pursuant to the Article 161, clause 3 of the Criminal Code.

From 2008 until 2011, Quan, asked his chief accountant Pham Thi Phuong to make 291 fake contracts on hiring experts worth over 5 billion VND (230,000 USD) to raise the company’s operational costs, meaning that he had to pay less in corporate income tax.

During the period, he also instructed cashier Nguyen Thi Oanh, 26, to legalise declarations for tax deduction.

In addition, in transactions to sell apartments at Sky City Tower located at 88 Lang Ha street, Quan only declared 3.5 billion VND (166,000 USD) in payment that home buyers transferred to him through the bank. The remaining payment totalling 948 million VND (45,000 USD) was made in cash directly to Quan with the purpose of evading tax.

The verdict made it clear that he must be held accountable for over 2 billion VND (100,000 USD) in all the dodged payments. Meanwhile Phuong, who was involved in making fake contracts and illegally trading added-value tax invoices, will be jailed for 7 months. Oanh was sentenced to six months in prison to be suspended for 12 months.

The Hanoi People’s Court also imposed the supplementary punishment pursuant to the Article 161, clause 4 of the Criminal Code, meaning the company must pay back double the evaded tax sum, or over 4 billion VND (200,000 USD) in total for the State budget.

Before the trial, Quan’s family voluntarily handed in more than 210 million VND (10,000 USD) to pay back part of the evaded tax. The amount will be deducted from the above sum.-VNA