Workshop highlights state audit sector’s role in tax management

Hanoi (VNA) – The state audit sector plays an important role in tax administration, helping strengthen the national financial system, heard a workshop held by the State Audit Office (SAV) and the UK-based Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in Hanoi on May 9.

SAV Deputy Auditor General Doan Xuan Tien said that tax auditing has been seen as an important task in all of the sector’s audits, which show that the numbers of tax evasions and violations of taxation regulations remain high across all localities, all types of enterprises and kinds of taxes.

Tien said that tax auditing has been constrained by a number of factors like neglect of evaluation of tax collection efficiency, short auditing duration, small-scale auditing, and a lack of experience amongst auditors amid diversified business forms.

Belinda Young – member of ACCA’s Global Forum on Taxation, Chairwoman of ACCA Singapore Taxation Interest Group, and Director of Centrecourt Group of Companies Singapore – said that changes in the global business environment and the rapid development of technology such as cryptocurrency and encryption have posed formidable challenges to the identification of tax responsibility.

To that end, nations should stay prudent when completing tax policies to fit their socio-economic development conditions, she said, adding that experience sharing and coordinating with competent authorities both outside and inside the country are crucial to ensure that the tax system is adaptable to new kinds of business.

Meanwhile, Chairwoman of the Vietnam Tax Consultant Association Nguyen Thi Cuc said that Vietnam moved up five places in the World Bank’s tax paying indicator in 2016 and 11 places in 2017, which means improvements were seen in the country’s business climate.

Survey conducted by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry also showed that more businesses express their satisfaction with administrative procedure reforms in the tax sector.

She noted that tax mechanisms and systems must be completed in accordance with Vietnam’s socio-economic conditions and international regulations.

Reform should be sped up, with procedures slashed in tax registration, declaration, payment, refund, and tax finalisation. –VNA