Associate Professor, Dr. Le Xuan Truong, Head of the Tax and Customs Department - Academy of Finance shared: The tax management system in Vietnam is in its second generation, enterprises and people are allowed to self-declare and pay taxes based on the application of information technology - electronic tax declaration (with the first generation tax management system, the tax authority calculates taxes and then notifies taxpayers manually). However, taxpayers still want more changes to facilitate the tax declaration/payment process.

Associate Professor, Dr. Le Xuan Truong cited: “Recently, during a discussion, a lecturer at the Academy of Finance proposed that the Tax sector review the regulation requiring taxpayers to submit personal income tax declarations. Because the Tax sector's system already has complete data, including personal tax codes. The Tax sector only needs to generate a notification, taxpayers self-check, see that the data is correct, click agree and it's done”.

According to Associate Professor Dr. Le Xuan Truong, the world is starting to move towards a third tax management system, where taxpayers no longer have to declare taxes, but the technology application system will automatically calculate based on the integration of the whole society.

Deputy Director General of the General Department of Taxation Mai Son speaks at the Tax - Customs forum in 2024

“Taxpayers can choose the automatic tax payment method, on the registered date, the bank will automatically deduct, without fear of forgetting and leading to late payment.

With such a real tax calculation system, of course, it is related to reforming legal regulations, the law allows it to be done. Along with that, investing in infrastructure, machinery and equipment is very important,” Mr. Truong further analyzed.

Acknowledging the efforts of the Tax sector, Mr. To Hoai Nam, Permanent Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, expressed his hope that in the near future, there will be a fully automatic tax system, ensuring that when businesses enter information into the system, any errors will be detected promptly and handled immediately so that those errors do not cause any more major problems for businesses.

Mr. Vu Le Huy, Deputy Director of the General Department of Information Technology of the General Department of Taxation, said: After more than 15 years of implementation, more than 100 million electronic tax declarations and more than 50 million electronic tax payment transactions of enterprises have been sent to the Tax authority.

From July 2022, all enterprises, organizations and individuals using invoices will switch to using electronic invoices. Through the General Department of Taxation's Electronic Information Portal, sellers and buyers can look up all their purchase and sale invoices to control the production and business process. Until now, the General Department of Taxation's electronic invoice system has received and processed more than 9.9 billion invoices.

The Electronic Information Portal for foreign suppliers has supported 110 foreign suppliers to register, declare and pay taxes; the total tax paid in 2024 is 6,234 billion VND.

Currently, there are 407 e-commerce platforms sending information to the Tax authority via the E-commerce Information Receiving Portal.

“How to have a system where everything is accurate and errors are detected immediately. If such a system can be built, it will minimize inspections and checks, which sometimes cause trouble and pressure for businesses,” emphasized Mr. To Hoai Nam.

Deputy General Director Mai Son stated that the consistent goal that the Tax sector is aiming for and is reflected in all activities on reforming tax policies and tax management of the sector is for the sustainable development of businesses. Therefore, the Tax authority always determines to take businesses as the center of service.

Accordingly, Deputy General Director Mai Son said that, with the spirit of always being ready to accompany businesses and people to overcome difficulties and speed up the recovery of the economy, the Tax authority has advised competent authorities to issue and implement many tax mechanisms and policies on support, extension, exemption and reduction of taxes (VAT, CIT, PIT), reduction of registration fees and land rents for businesses.

Along with that, the Tax Policy System has been and is being reformed synchronously with the main taxes, fees, and charges of the 2021-2030 period such as: VAT, special consumption tax, import-export tax, corporate income tax, etc according to the orientation set out in the Tax System Reform Strategy.

According to Deputy General Director Mai Son, the Tax sector has focused on building and perfecting tax management laws, including amending and supplementing the Tax Management Law, creating a legal corridor to reform tax management procedures in the direction of unity, publicity, transparency, simplification, ease of understanding, ease of implementation, and ease of inspection.

At the same time, modern information technology is applied in all stages of tax management. The regulation on the widespread application of electronic tax management and electronic transactions has contributed to facilitating, simplifying and saving time for implementing tax procedures, reducing compliance costs for taxpayers.

Speakers discuss at the Tax - Customs Forum 2024.

Every year, the General Department of Taxation organizes many activities such as dialogue conferences, exchanges, and seminars in the form of supporting the business community.

In particular, tax authorities at all levels have focused on propaganda, providing effective and quick support to taxpayers in many diverse forms. Especially by electronic means such as: Tax sector website, supporting taxpayers to look up tax information and documents, tax regulations, questions and answers, resolving taxpayers' problems and recommendations.

At the same time, the tax authority also organizes conferences, dialogues in both direct and online forms, online tax settlement support sessions; the system of 479 electronic tax support information channels continues to be operated and deployed stably, providing timely 24/7 support for taxpayers using electronic tax services with a support rate of over 95%.

“The Tax sector has been re-engineering the entire business process and information technology system with the motto of taking taxpayers as the center to design applications, ensuring increased flexibility and integration of the system and realizing the objectives of the Tax System Reform Strategy issued with Decision 508/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister.

Improving service to taxpayers, promoting the provision of electronic tax services, and applying artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze risks to identify invoice fraud, prevent illegal invoice trading, etc to contribute to transparency and create a healthy business environment for the business community and taxpayers”, Deputy Director General Mai Son emphasized.

In addition, Tax authorities at all levels continue to maintain and promote tax declaration support applications, electronic tax services with many utilities, supporting taxpayers to make tax declarations conveniently and accurately.

Currently, the rate of enterprises using online tax declaration services is 99.95%; the rate of using electronic tax payment services is 99.2%; the rate of enterprises making electronic tax refunds is 99%; 100% of enterprises and organizations have switched to using electronic invoices.