The Tax Department (Ministry of Finance) has just issued an urgent official dispatch to the Tax Departments of provinces and cities and the Large Enterprise Tax Sub-Department on strengthening inspection and handling of tax violations in gasoline and oil business activities.
From the beginning of 2026 to now, the world geopolitical situation has been complicated, conflicts have escalated in the Middle East and the risk of disruption of crude oil supply through key transport routes has caused world crude oil prices to increase sharply. This has led to strong fluctuations in domestic gasoline and oil prices, especially in March 2026 with 5 retail gasoline and oil price adjustments, posing a potential risk of violations of the law on taxes and invoices in gasoline and oil business.
According to the tax authorities, these fluctuations need to be monitored and analyzed to promptly detect violations and strictly handle them in accordance with the provisions of tax law and relevant legal regulations.
Implementing the direction of the Government leaders, through reviewing the electronic invoice database for some gasoline and oil businesses, the tax authority recorded some unusual signs.
Specifically, the quantity of goods sold before and after the price adjustment period has strong fluctuations. In particular, some businesses have a total output sold in the 2 days before the price increase of more than 3 times the output sold in the 2 days after the price increase, posing a high risk in tax management.
Based on the provisions of the Law on Tax Administration and related decrees, the Tax Department requests Provincial and City Tax Departments and Large Enterprise Tax Sub-Departments to focus resources on reviewing and analyzing data on tax declaration, electronic invoices, sales volume, revenue, inventory before and after the State adjusts retail gasoline and oil prices; identify high-risk enterprises under direct management to conduct surprise inspections.
The inspection content focuses on the declaration and payment of value-added tax, environmental protection tax; inspecting the issuance of electronic invoices for each sale for gasoline and oil products. The inspection period is from January 2026 to the end of March 2026.
The tax authority requests to focus on inspecting the amount of gasoline and oil sold by businesses in the days before, during and after the State adjusts retail gasoline and oil prices - times when the output of gasoline and oil sold usually fluctuates more than other days.
In which, it is necessary to check the number of electronic invoices issued during the day, especially invoices with large output; compare sales accounting books with issued invoices and actual goods sold; check import, export, and inventory books by day or sales shift to accurately determine the inventory volume at the time of price adjustment.
At the same time, check documents and import and export procedures of gasoline and oil businesses. For customers who buy unusually large quantities, it is necessary to check transportation vehicles, warehouses, purchase and sale contracts, conditions and delivery time of goods.
In case signs of hoarding goods, speculation, limiting sales for profit when prices fluctuate; making and using invoices at the wrong time or not reflecting the true nature of transactions; price fraud, profit transfer between affiliated units; not issuing invoices or issuing incomplete invoices... are detected, they will be strictly handled according to regulations or transferred to competent authorities.
The Tax Department said that it has transferred all information, data collected and preliminary analysis to units for synchronous and unified deployment. Completion time in April 2026. In case it is impossible to check, units must clearly report the reasons.
The inspection results will be summarized and reported to the Tax Department, including the amount of tax arrears, fines, assessment of common violations of gasoline and oil businesses; difficulties and obstacles and proposals for tax management measures for the gasoline and oil business sector.
