Tax debt increases, 17,952 cases are temporarily suspended from leaving the country

Tax debt increases

Nearly VND30.4 trillion is the amount of tax debt recorded in the first 8 months of 2024. The tax and customs authorities said they have temporarily suspended exit for 17,952 cases of tax debt.

According to the Tax Directorate, among the tax debt cases, 10,829 taxpayers abandoned their business addresses with an amount of VND 6,894 billion. The result of implementing the temporary exit suspension measure has collected VND 1,341 billion from 2,116 taxpayers who are temporarily suspended from exiting the country.

Notably, tax debts of 650 enterprises that have abandoned their business addresses have been collected, with tax debts of 46.7 billion VND.

Demand strict tax debt collection, attaching responsibility to each individual

Earlier this year, the Tax Directorate issued Official Dispatch No. 191/TCT-QLN dated January 15, 2024, requesting and assigning Tax Departments to ensure the completion of tax debt collection targets in 2024, while enhancing responsibility in debt management and tax debt collection to the State Budget (NSNN), contributing to the completion of the 2024 State Budget collection task.

Recently, as tax debts continued to increase, on September 23, the Tax Directorate continued to issue Official Letter No. 4216/TCT-QLN, continuing to direct the Tax Departments of provinces and centrally-run cities to focus on implementing 11 groups of measures to recover tax debts, of which some groups were specifically requested by the Tax Directorate.

For example, the local Tax Departments are required to assign, assign tasks and assign responsibility for tax debt collection and tax debt settlement to each officer and civil servant in charge. At the same time, the organization must closely monitor, supervise and inspect the progress of implementing urging and enforcement measures to ensure the implementation of debt collection targets and limit the occurrence of new debts.

Strengthen the review and classification of tax debts to ensure that they are in accordance with the nature of the debt and that there are complete classification records in accordance with the instructions in the Debt Management Procedure. In case the records are incomplete, timely reclassification must be carried out according to the nature of the debt.

Fully and accurately monitor and account for taxpayers' debts in the centralized tax management application (TMS), creating favorable conditions for electronically implementing debt management and tax debt enforcement.

Regarding the work of urging tax debt collection, tax authorities must fully implement urging measures and publicize information in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Tax Administration and guiding documents to collect tax arrears to the State budget. For taxpayers with tax arrears of less than 90 days, the inspection and examination department is responsible for controlling data and urging taxpayers to pay tax arrears to the State budget, limiting protracted and prolonged debts.

In case a taxpayer has a tax debt that is over 30 days old, the tax authority shall issue a Notice of Tax Debt to the taxpayer electronically via the electronic tax transaction account (eTax).

For taxpayers with tax arrears of more than 60 days, tax officials must regularly contact taxpayers to remind them to pay tax arrears and notify taxpayers that enforcement measures will be applied when the debt is more than 90 days old.