The General Department of Taxation requests local tax departments to assign debt collection and handling bad debt targets to leader of each tax department, branch and division and officer. Photo: T.L

Tax debt remains high level

From the beginning of 2024, the General Department of Taxation requested and assigned tax departments to ensure the completion of tax debt collection targets in 2024, and enhance responsibility in tax debt management and collection, contributing to the completion of the state revenue collection in 2024. However, the monitoring debt management and enforcement by local and central tax departments and the Large Taxpayers Department showed that as of August 31, total amount of tax debts across the country remains the high level.

Regarding the implementation of the temporary exit suspension measure, as of August 14, 2024, the Tax authority has announced the temporary exit suspension for 17,952 taxpayers with the tax debt of VND30,388 billion, of which 10,829 taxpayers have abandoned their business address with the tax debt of VND 6,894 billion.

Through the implementation of temporary exit suspension measure, the Taxman has collected VND1,341 billion of 2,116 taxpayers. Notably, the Taxman has recovered VND46.7 billion of tax debts of tax payers.

The General Department of Taxation, the debt amount in August is estimated at VND 3,244 billion. Accumulated to the end of August 2024, the Tax sector collected VND53.771 billion of tax debt, increasing by 29% year-on-year, including VND 3,313 billion collected by debt enforcement measures. 41/63 localities that collected the tax debts in eight months, increased compared to the same period, of which 17 localities had debt collection increase of over 50%.

As of August 31, the total tax debt is estimate to reach 14.3%, of which the total recoverable debt in 2024 reached 10.4%. 19/63 localities have the total debt less than 8%. According to the assessment, the total tax debt under the management of the entire Tax sector increased by 21.1% compared to the end of 2023 and 23.6% compared to the same period of the previous year.

Regarding tax debt, at the conference on the performance of the financial and budgetary tasks of the Ministry of Finance on September, Mai Xuan Thanh, Director General of the General Department of Taxation, said that in implementing tax debt management, units have implemented policies and measures to urge and collect debts, but the units have not yet achieved positive results, which showed the difficult situation of enterprises. According to the Director General, the tax debt collection showed that land tax debts have faced problems related to procedures at the local level.

In fact, although some enterprises face many difficulties, they have paid a large amount of land use fees, even exceeded the initial amount payable. However, as per regulations, this amount is not included in the tax, so the enterprises are still subject to debt monitoring and late payment, and tax debt enforcement measures. This is one of the problems that needs to be considered and the General Department of Taxation will report to the Ministry of Finance and the Government for a common solution.

Focus on handling debts of land use fees and land rents

In the context of tax debts remaining at a high level, in order to achieve the tax debt collection target and enhance the responsibility of tax departments in completing the target in the last months of the year, the General Department of Taxation requests central and local tax departments to assign target and attach responsibility for tax debt collection, handling tax arrears to each leader of tax department, division, branch and each officer; and monitor, supervise and closely inspect the progress of implementing urging and enforcement measures to achieve debt collection targets and new debts.

The General Department of Taxation requires units to fully implement measures to urge and publicize information in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Tax Administration and guiding documents to collect tax debts to the State budget. For taxpayers with tax debts of more than 90 days or tax debts subject to enforcement, the Tax authority must immediately apply enforcement measures and publicize information in accordance with regulations.

For tax debts pending settlement or adjustment, the taxman needs to a document to the competent authority to speed up the deduction of compensation and site clearance fees from payable land use fees and land rents to promptly handle these debts...

One of the measures that the General Department of Taxation requested units, is to focus on handling debts of land use fees, land rents, and mineral exploitation rights fees. Accordingly, review and report to the Provincial People's Committee to direct relevant local agencies to remove difficulties and obstacles related to land area, land price, planning adjustment, deduction of compensation for site clearance... (if any) to promptly handle and recover debts of land use fees, land rent, and mineral exploitation rights fees.

Regarding tax debts, the Ministry of Finance requested the General Department of Taxation to closely monitor the extended taxes and fees to urge taxpayers to pay fully and promptly, and avoid new debts and late payment fees; classify tax debts accurately and in accordance with the instructions in the Tax Debt Management Process to provide appropriate management and collection solutions. At the same time, fully, promptly and effectively apply tax debt enforcement measures and accelerate the progress of develop the project on automated debt management and tax debt enforcement.