People want to pay taxes but suffer because of declaration procedures

eTax software has improved but not really as expected

On the afternoon of March 14, at the workshop "Personal Income Tax Law - Ensuring fairness, promoting growth" organized by Lao Dong Newspaper in coordination with the National Economics University, Associate Professor, Dr. Phan Huu Nghi - Deputy Director of the Institute of Banking and Finance, National Economics University said: Currently, personal income tax is mainly collected by the method of deduction at source, which means that the paying enterprise or unit will deduct part of the income of the employee to pay tax on behalf of the employee.

However, for people with many different sources of income, the current system still has shortcomings when data is not synchronized between sources of income, leading to a situation where taxpayers may be required to settle taxes themselves or have their taxes collected, even though they have previously deducted taxes at source. The eTax software as mentioned above has improved but not really as expected, people are still struggling with declaration procedures.

According to Associate Professor Nghi, one of the important improvement proposals is that when income payment institutions submit quarterly statements, they need to update quarterly personal income and the amount of taxes paid temporarily through the electronic system, data is floating on eTax. Instead of waiting until the end of the year to settle taxes, workers can monitor updated income declarations from different sources every quarter.

At the end of the year, in the first 3 months of the following year, the software system will automatically synthesize, calculate taxes and notify the amount to be paid. Sending a notice to taxpayers: Do you agree with the tax amount on the tax calculation software or not? Agree, automatically submit. If there are errors, taxpayers can adjust the authentication of tax authorities through the software. Submitting additional or withdrawal tax payments is done automatically via the app.

He gave an example: If an individual has income from teaching, consulting, investing in securities, real estate, the software will synthesize all these revenue sources in each period, helping to calculate the tax payable accurately. Sending the notification, if the taxpayer agrees, the system will automatically deduct and pay taxes without having to carry out manual procedures, helping to minimize errors, avoiding the case of being collected or fined for data differences.

Lack of synchronization between income sources

One of the issues that makes it difficult for people to comply with taxes, Associate Professor Nghi said that it is a lack of synchronization between income sources.

"For example, when an individual has income from many places but each place implements different tax deductions (income over 2 million is deductible, under 2 million is not deductible), the total income declaration can be incorrect" - he said.

To solve this problem, it is necessary to build a modern tax management system based on Big Data technology and connect directly with income payment institutions. At that time, all income will be automatically updated into the tax system, helping taxpayers to control their tax obligations in real time.

The application of technology not only helps simplify the tax declaration process, but also helps reduce administrative burdens for both tax authorities and people, while enhancing tax compliance.

Currently, many people do not intentionally violate tax regulations but are fined due to complicated and unsynchronized declaration processes, due to different ways of paying different taxes, such as authorization to declare with a 10% deduction or self-declaration of taxes. In some cases, they have paid taxes but because their income has not been fully updated, they are still required to self-declare, causing a waste of time and creating a feeling of injustice.

To improve compliance, there needs to be an automatic tax refund mechanism if people have paid in excess. Instead of having to carry out complicated tax refund procedures, the system can automatically determine the excess tax and return it directly to the taxpayer's account with just a simple operation. This not only helps people easily fulfill their tax obligations but also creates trust in the tax system.

In short, improving tax declaration methods, applying technology to synchronize income data and building a transparent tax refund system are necessary solutions to ensure fairness in personal income tax, helping to increase budget collection efficiency without creating unnecessary burdens for workers.