It's a pity to leave, but it's too tiring to continue.

For more than 4 months now, Ms. QP ( Hanoi ) and her husband have not been able to complete the personal income tax refund procedure to receive more than 10 million VND. Her husband has a household registration in Ho Chi Minh City, but is registered for temporary residence in Hanoi. The 4 agencies that pay him income are all in Hanoi but in Dong Da, Thanh Xuan, and Long Bien districts.

“As far as I know, you can file a tax refund application and send it to the tax office where you registered your temporary residence or where you received your income. However, the first time you sent the application to the Thanh Xuan District Tax Department, where you registered your temporary residence, they said that if your residence is in Ho Chi Minh City, you must send it there.

When sending the documents to Ho Chi Minh City, the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department returned them with the reason that the source of income payment is in Hanoi, so they must be sent to the tax authority in Hanoi for tax refund.

We sent the documents to the Thanh Xuan District Tax Department and were instructed to send them to the Long Bien District Tax Department - the area where my husband had an official labor contract (at other income-paying agencies, he only had a collaborator contract). Sending them to the Long Bien District Tax Department was still returned. We had to send the documents via email many times according to the tax agency's instructions, each time the documents were rejected for a different reason," Ms. QP recounted the tax refund procedure journey with a tired voice.

According to Ms. QP, declaring on the eTax Mobile system is quite simple, she only needs to be guided by the accountant once, she can do it herself. In the past few years, she has done the tax refund procedure without any problems, one year she received more than 30 million VND in tax refund.

However, this year, even though the four places that paid her husband's income all had tax payment confirmations and the data matched the tax system, the procedures were still not completed for several months.

“It’s so frustrating. If I don’t do the tax refund procedure, I will lose money, and it’s a pity because that money is the sweat and effort I have worked hard to earn. If I don’t fulfill my obligation to declare and pay taxes, I will be fined. When I get the tax refund, if they don’t refund me, I won’t be fined at all,” Ms. QP said indignantly.

Similarly, Mr. TC (Hanoi) is also struggling to figure out how to get more than 10 million VND in personal income tax refund because he cannot collect enough information from the paying agencies.

“I went to the eTax system to check how many units issued tax deduction invoices for me, to request enough documents as required by the tax authority. However, I discovered a unit that I don't know where it came from, unlike any other place I've ever worked. Some people said that my tax code might have been taken by some unit and then declared by themselves," Mr. TC shared, adding that "there is no way to track it down."

"According to the regulations, I have to get all the documents from all the units that pay me to get my tax refund approved. I'm looking for a service to help me but haven't found any yet. I might have to give up the idea of ​​receiving a tax refund because it will take months to complete all the paperwork. It would be less tiring if I went to work to earn the same amount of money," TC said wearily.

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Many people have difficulty getting personal income tax refunds. Photo: Nam Khanh

Need to reduce difficulties for taxpayers

According to current regulations, personal income tax refund dossiers must include: personal income tax refund request; personal income tax finalization declaration; personal income tax deduction documents.

Therefore, once a taxpayer has income from many places, it will take a lot of time to gather enough tax deduction documents.

Ms. QP or Mr. TC are not isolated cases having difficulty with personal income tax refund procedures.

In Ho Chi Minh City, in the first 6 months of 2024, the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department received 174,478 applications for personal income tax refunds, but there were still more than 20,000 applications without final settlement results, of which more than 10,584 applications were not eligible for tax refunds.

The Ministry of Finance pointed out a series of reasons for slow personal income tax refund settlement such as: taxpayers submitting incorrect final settlement to tax authorities, under-declaring taxable income, incorrectly declaring dependent deduction time or declaring dependents who are not eligible for deduction, under-declaring deductible compulsory insurance... The fault lies with taxpayers.

Speaking with VietNamNet , Associate Professor Dr. Le Xuan Truong, Head of the Tax - Customs Department, Academy of Finance, commented: To reduce difficulties for taxpayers when refunding personal income tax, it is necessary to thoroughly overcome the causes of the difficulties.

On the one hand, it is necessary to strengthen propaganda so that taxpayers understand legal regulations, correctly determine taxable income and deductions when declaring tax settlement, and minimize cases of incorrect declaration.

Since 2023, the tax authority has deployed the eTax Mobile application on mobile phones, allowing taxpayers to look up income information and tax amounts paid. Tax authorities need to increase propaganda, guidance, and support taxpayers in using this application in tax declaration, tax settlement, and personal income tax refund, avoiding risks when declaring.

Along with that, tax authorities also need to increase the application of information technology to circulate, approve documents and issue electronic tax refund decisions, speeding up the process of tax refund settlement for taxpayers.

“In the long term, it is necessary to amend legal regulations to reduce personal income tax refund dossiers.

When the paying organization has declared tax settlement for payments to individuals in the electronic tax declaration system, the personal income tax deduction documents should be removed from the tax refund dossier," Associate Professor, Dr. Le Xuan Truong recommended.