Pham Thi Vinh, director of woodchip maker Ha Long 12-11 JSC in the northeastern coastal province of Quang Ninh, claims that her company has been waiting for billions of Vietnam dong as a VAT refund since 2020, while the company has debts with banks and local farmers alongside many bills to pay.

Wood exporters are facing numerous hardships on solving their tax refund proposals

Vinh and other 10 woodchip makers in Quang Ninh province have sent a petition to National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue, and relevant management agencies, seeking for a combined VAT refund amount worth VND1.1 trillion ($46.4 million), which they have not yet received.

The requests of these 11 businesses have so far been blocked due to requirements on verifying the origin of export woodchips according to the provisions of Official Letter No. 633/TCT-TTKT.

Ty Long, one of th businesses, reported that in fact four afforestation households can be verified every day, while businesses possibly buy from thousands of forest owners in many locations. It might take five years to revisit them all.

In the petition for help, businesses suggest the verification of woodchip origin for tax refund to just engage businesses who directly purchase woodchips from individual households growing forests, removing the regulation on the verification of individual forest growing households.

The reason is that woodchip products are taxed at the commercial stage, while producers sell them without tax.

In another case, An Phat Global Import-Export Trading JSC has been present in many meetings of the NA Standing Committee in the past two months.

On August 9, the General Department of Taxation issued an Official Dispatch to directors of Tax Departments of centrally governed localities on accelerating the settlement of VAT refund dossiers.

Notwithstanding, as of August 14, the company's VAT refund applications had not yet been resolved by the Hanoi Tax Department.

In a third letter of appeal sent to VIR, the company wrote that the reason the business was not entitled to a tax refund was because relevant Chinese businesses didn’t honestly declare their goods’ origin with Chinese tax authorities, arguing that that is the responsibility of Chinese enterprises to the law enforcement agencies of that country. This does not affect the implementation of VAT refund process for Vietnamese businesses.

Earlier, within the framework of the 25^th session of the National Assembly Standing Committee launched on August 14, NA Chairman Hue emphasised that fighting tax fraud and errors should not delay the tax refund of businesses.