State agencies hope businesses understand

“I am not saying all, but the officer in charge of our company's tax settlement records seems to not understand the specifics of the industry. Therefore, the officer cannot answer or support us on related issues.”

The above information was reported by Ms. Phan Thi Hong Diem, Titan Technology Joint Stock Company (HCMC) at the conference "Business - City Government Dialogue" held in HCMC on October 10.

Responding to businesses' opinions on the capacity of tax officers, Mr. Nguyen Duy Khiem, Deputy Head of the Department of Professional Affairs, Budgeting, and Legal Affairs (HCMC Tax), stated the reason that the tax industry is changing, from "management by function combined with objects" to "management by objects combined with functions". Some tax officers previously worked according to function, so they only knew how to handle a certain stage of work.

"Due to the change, these employees are having to study more. During the working process, it is possible that tax officers have not given businesses accurate answers," he explained.

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The dialogue conference with businesses of the Ho Chi Minh City government attracted hundreds of participating units. Photo: ITPC

Mr. Khiem also noted that Titan Company should send a document to receive an official response from the tax authority. If the response from the tax authority is not complete, the enterprise can contact the higher tax authority for clearer and more accurate information.

Deputy Director of the Department of Science and Technology of Ho Chi Minh City, Ms. Nguyen Hoang Bao Tran, admitted that the issue of cadres and civil servants is not only in the tax sector, but is a common story. The city government has conducted many monitoring and inspection trips to localities and also has plans to train, educate and improve the qualifications of cadres.

Therefore, Ms. Tran hopes that businesses will sympathize and share with the State management agency if they encounter some difficulties in the process of handling administrative procedures.

Tax settlement has not been completed for 3-4 months now

Speaking to VietNamNet reporters on the sidelines of the conference, a representative of Titan Company provided more information about the incident that the unit reported. Accordingly, Titan is a software production enterprise (in the field of science and technology), established in 2013. The enterprise pays provisional tax periodically and settles tax in a lump sum, done once for many years.

The unit is enjoying tax incentives and only has to pay corporate income tax at a rate of 5% (according to the 2013 amended Law on Corporate Income Tax).

However, four months ago, when making tax settlements for the period 2020-2024, tax officials announced that Titan was not eligible for corporate income tax incentives. "Therefore, my company will have to pay 20% corporate income tax," said Ms. Diem. Meanwhile, in the previous tax settlement, the tax authority itself had issued a document confirming that Titan was eligible for tax incentives.

"The current tax officer said the above document was incorrect and the previous tax officer had done wrong," she said.

According to Ms. Diem, the company's accounting manager had to go to the tax office many times to make tax settlements but could not complete them.

“The company director has already come to work once. Last week, the accountant also went to the tax office. The tax settlement process has been going on for 3-4 months and is still not finished,” said the company representative, adding that the company will send a document to the tax office to clarify the information.

The Chief Accountant complained to the Deputy Director of the State Bank about the 'period and comma' being abused by an officer. A set of documents of a business was 'scrutinized' for small errors and returned many times. The officer receiving the documents at the State Bank Branch, Region 2 also expressed his annoyance during the process of performing public services.

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/quyet-toan-thue-mai-khong-xong-doanh-nghiep-noi-can-bo-thue-khong-hieu-van-de-2451295.html