Customs Supports Businesses through Collection System

The General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDC) has recently upgraded its 24/7 electronic tax payment form and launched a business-authorized electronic tax payment program (debt deduction authorization) to assist businesses, particularly regular exporters and importers with a large number of tax declarations, in fulfilling their tax obligations.

The General Department of Vietnam Customs (GDC) has offered much support to help businesses, especially regular exporters and importers with a large number of tax declarations, in complying with their tax obligations

Businesses receive a lot of benefits

The Import-Export Tax Bureau official at GDC emphasized the benefits of the electronic tax collection program, stating that businesses who register their participation with customs authorities and authorize debt deduction with banks at their service will not need to perform any other operations for tax payment, liquidity, and debt deduction. These processes are conducted automatically, quickly, securely, and accurately. The business community has responded positively to these benefits. The conditions for participation in the program are stated in Official Dispatch No. 7330/TCHQ-TXNK dated November 25, 2019 of the General Department of Customs.

Seven years ago, GDC launched the 24/7 electronic tax payment and customs clearance form to modernize state budget collection and add more payment channels to facilitate taxpayers. This form allows tax payment anytime, anywhere, by any means. This helps reduce cash payments while ensuring timely and accurate payment information and shortening tax payment time. At the same time, goods are cleared through customs immediately after tax is paid, reducing the time to complete customs procedures for imported and exported goods to the average level of the ASEAN-4 group of countries

GDC has recently upgraded its 24/7 electronic tax payment form and launched a business-authorized electronic tax payment program (debt deduction authorization) to assist businesses, particularly regular importers and exporters with a large number of tax declarations, in fulfilling their tax obligations. This program allows companies to avoid paying taxes themselves, as customs offices will send declaration information and authorized banks will automatically pay such taxes on their behalf.

Currently, the customs sector is reportedly applying three forms of tax payment at the same time: tax payment at banks that cooperate with tax authorities to collect tax, 24/7 electronic tax payment and customs clearance, and business-authorized electronic tax collection (debt deduction authorization). Taxpayers can choose one of the above tax payment methods to fulfill their tax payment obligation to the state budget.

At present, seven banks have joined the business-authorized tax collection program, including Vietcombank, Vietinbank, BIDV, TPBank, VPBank, MBBank and Techcombank.

Seven banks have participated in the business-authorized tax collection program, namely Vietcombank, Vietinbank, BIDV, TPBank, VPBank, MBBank and Techcombank

Customs authorities enhance tax collection efficiency

The Import-Export Tax Bureau has stated that, with this program, customs authorities will immediately transfer information on the tax amount payable for each declaration to the banks where companies authorized debt deduction, with the amount and deadline of payment stated, after-tax debt declarations are filed. This tax payment method saves companies time and money.

Regarding management, customs authorities have changed from passively waiting for businesses to transfer tax payments to actively transferring payment requests to banks for tax payments. Thus, this process is shorter than the 24/7 electronic tax payment. For smooth implementation, GDC has requested joining banks to arrange specialized officers to answer complaints from enterprises.

In the coming time, the customs sector will continue to apply Industry 4.0 achievements to develop modern payment services, apply advanced technologies, business models and digital solutions to diversify payment products and services on digital platforms to collect taxes for the State Budget, connect payment service providers and payment intermediaries to carry out Decision No. 1813/QD-TTg dated October 28, 2021 of the Prime Minister on ratification of the noncash payment development project in Vietnam in 2021-2025.

Currently, infrastructure and technology for noncash payments are always developed by payment intermediary service providers, especially electronic payments, with improved quality to better meet the increasing payment needs. On that basis, GDC plans to deploy tax payments through intermediary payment service providers to provide more forms of payment for taxpayers in the near future.

By Hien Phuc, Vietnam Business Forum