Vietnam’s Customs Sector Striving to Beat Tax Target

 

The General Department said the customs sector was assigned to contribute VND131.5 trillion to the State Budget in 2010, up 8.5 % from the 2009 estimation. This is a big challenge for the customs sector as Vietnamese and global economies have revived from a worse recession in many decades, which certainly wrecked on importing and exporting activities of enterprises.

 

Besides, Vietnam will continue slashing import tariffs in line with international commitments with the WTO, ASEAN - Japan, ASEAN - China, ASEAN - South Korea, etc. On the other hand, to support domestic production and consumption, the Government will have to apply some strict measures to control importation of goods local enterprises can manufacture and non-essential commodities to reduce widening trade gap. As a result, the customs sector is facing multiple difficulties in tax collection.

 

Being aware of this, to complete and even surpass the target of collecting VND131.5 trillion for the State Budget as the National Assembly sets for this year, since 2009, the General Department of Customs instructed its subordinates to revise the estimation and determined to collect VND144.7 trillion in 2010. Taking tax and debt collections as a major political task of the sector in 2010 and a plus mark to career profile of customs officials, the customs sector has actively and flexible applied solutions to complete the task by quickly settling problems arising from tax management, tax accounting, tax reimbursement and tax exemption, double-checking potential sources of taxes to apply tax revisions to the Ministry of Finance for necessary amendments to tax regulations, and timely detect and settle mistakes and shortcomings. At the same time, the sector will continue accelerating the reform of customs procedures, tax administration procedures and facilitating import and export activities. It will timely apply the second phase of tax collection modernisation to more local customs offices, step up the completion of legal documents to facilitate cooperation with banks to exchange information about taxes.

 

In addition, the customs sector also keeps an open eye on trade fraud, tax loss, post-clearance inspection, etc. It will issue a list of commodities in need of risk management, which include goods with high possibility of trade frauds, high import tariffs and large import value to prevent falsified declarations with the aim of paying fewer taxes, and strengthen personnel specialising in prices and database to support inspection and valuation of commodities.

The sector will analyse debts in accordance with criteria provided in the Circular 79/2009/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance to have appropriate measures to settle debts effectively, ask tax units to report on overdue tax forms enclosed with the Document 2816/TCHQ-KTTT dated May 31, 2010 issued by the General Department of Customs, focus on dealing with overdue taxes while urging taxpayers to observe taxation regulations, and uphold responsibilities of tax collectors in handling tax debts. At the end of the fiscal year, customs offices fail to reduce old debts and overdue taxes, they will be labelled failing to complete assigned tasks.

 

Hence, in spite of existing economic difficulties, the customs sector still made positive progress. In the first six months of 2010, it collected VND80,619 billion, equal to 61.3 % of the estimation, equal to 55.7 % of the plan and up 33.8 % from the same period in 2009.

Apart measures to increase state budget revenues, the customs sector will apply drastic measures to deal with tax debts and bad debts from problematic companies (dissolved, bankrupt, closed and going on trial) before January 1, 2006. The reasons for the existence of these debts are attributed to the regulations provided in the Tax Law effective before January 1, 2006 and low sense of law observance and compliance of many taxpayers. According to a report in 2006, this sort of debts amounted to VND440 billion. The General Department of Customs will report to the Ministry of Finance to submit proposed solutions to the Prime Minister for approval.

 

Regarding objective overdue taxes arising before July 1, 2007 (estimated at VND200 billion), the customs sector will continue to implement the government’s instructions provided in the Document 1442/VPCP-KTTH dated March 8, 2010, coordinate with the General Department of Taxation to draw up amendments and supplements to Article 38 of Decree 97/2007/ND-CP and Decree 98/2007/ND-CP and submit to the the Government.

 

In the coming time, to implement coercive measures to tax debts effectively, the sector will report to the Ministry of Finance, propose the Government to amendments and supplements to the Law on Tax Administration to the lawmaking National Assembly to suit current situations.