Electronic payment service has enabled businesses to pay taxes anytime anywhere. This new method has also helped reduce coercive measures and wrong grace period grants which may considerably affect rights and interests of taxpayers. To ensure rapid and accurate tax payment data, the General Department of Vietnam Customs recently requested commercial banks to control information and documents submitted by taxpayer before carrying out customs clearance.
According to the General Department of Vietnam Customs, 24 commercial banks signed tax collection cooperation agreements with the General Department. Tax collection via electronic means account for 72 percent of total tax revenue of customs sector. All customs agencies have adopted electronic payment.
The General Department of Vietnam Customs said recent inspections and surveys into some banks showed that the coordination in tax collection has met expectations. However, some bank branches still found tax payment receipts with incomplete information, tax payment verification without money control, and late communication to taxpayers, which may slow customs clearance process.
Therefore, to tightly control and accelerate customs clearance of goods for businesses, the General Department of Vietnam Customs recommended commercial banks officially coordinate in guiding their branches to collect taxes timely and accurately and promptly communicate tax payment to the Customs Electronic Payment Portal. In case taxpayers declared information incompatible with query information on the Customs Electronic Payment Portal (except for payment value information), banks must request taxpayers to clarify, amend and supplement information when they transfer the money. Where taxpayers declare information but their names are not found on the portal, banks must inform support divisions for solution. In case customs authorities cannot settle in time, banks must base on declared information of taxpayers to extract or collect money of taxpayers and transfer it to State Treasury’s accounts opened at authorised collection banks and immediately forward collection information to the portal and establish payment documents for the case.
In case the systems of both sides crash, the General Department of Vietnam Customs recommended banks at the service of taxpayers immediately notify relevant customs offices to update the information on both systems. Customs authorities will consider customs clearance by looking at payment receipt provided by coordinating banks. In case of being notified of incidents, banks must closely coordinate with customs authorities by contacting face to face or telephoning and verifying tax payment information via facsimile or internal email. Besides, commercial banks issue payment statements to taxpayers after they perform internal control of documents, transfer money data to the State Treasury, communicate payment document information to the customs electronic payment portal, ensure adequate information on payment documents undersigned and sealed by banks after being verified.
In any case, the system does not perform automatic clearance due to inconsistent information with declared information on the portal, customs authorities must check the "message on payment receipt from bank" on the portal and compare with the information provided by relevant taxpayers. Where tax code, declaration paper serial number, amount value are matched, customs authorities must confirm the completion of tax obligations and also notify inconsistent information to taxpayers. With the above clear and coherent measures, tax collection via banks will avoid unnecessary mistakes and speed up the progress of freight clearance.
Hien Phuc
Vietnamese
