More than 127,000 businesses in the economic hub of Ho Chi Minh filed and paid their taxes online in 2013, accounting for 91 percent of all enterprises in the city, according to the municipal taxation department.

The municipal taxation department has enhanced customer support to improve the service’s efficiency.

The department reported that the city contributed 167.65 trillion VND (7.88 billion USD) to the state budget in 2013, or 106.93 percent of year’s plan and up 11.83 percent against the previous year.

However, the city posted tax arrears of 17.3 trillion VND (831 million USD) last year, of which the recoverable debts were over 13 trillion VND (611 million USD); debts claimed to be adjusted valued were 1.2 trillion VND (56.4 million USD); and bad debts were 143 billion VND (6.7 billion USD).

In 2013, the tax department inspected 54,000 businesses with tax violation signs and collected 13 trillion VND from them. The department also worked with other 230 businesses on their exaggerated losses and collected 2.3 trillion VND of tax.-VNA