Reforming tax administrative procedures: It is important to be proactive and flexible.

(Baonghean) - A recent report by the Ministry of Finance stated that many proposed solutions for reforming tax administrative procedures have helped reduce the time and procedures for tax payment for people and businesses quickly and effectively. In particular, with the provisions of Resolution No. 63/NQ-CP dated August 25, 2014 on reforming tax administrative procedures, especially the issuance of 1 circular amending and supplementing 7 circulars, 1 decree amending and supplementing 4 current decrees with many important and urgent contents, it has created a basis for reducing the number of transaction hours for taxpayers.

Reduce the burden on taxpayers

Commenting on the practical value of implementing new legal documents on tax administrative reform, Mr. Nguyen Dinh Hoa, Director of Nghe An Tax Department, said that these documents have really helped to concretize the goals that need to be achieved in practice, such as simplifying the forms for declaration of value added tax (VAT), corporate income tax (CIT) or removing unnecessary declaration indicators in the tax declaration. Moreover, the construction and implementation of information technology (IT) applications, creating the basis, platform and means for enterprises to automatically make tax declarations from software instead of making documents by manual methods... along with the abolition of regulations that enterprises must send a list of invoices for purchased and sold goods and services along with the VAT declaration to the tax authority; Regulations on accounting for increased taxable revenue, regulations on issuing invoices in case of internal consumption of enterprises... have not only helped enterprises reduce procedures but also helped tax officials "reduce" the burden of paperwork and administrative processing.

Electric wire production at Sao Mai Factory, Bac Vinh Industrial Park. Photo: CL

Many businesses have the same opinion about the process of reforming administrative procedures in the tax sector when they said that recently, the Tax sector has resolutely implemented reform procedures, not only taxpayers find it easier, saving more time, effort and money, but the tax administration agency also has to have the necessary "transformation". For example, the Tax sector's promotion of electronic tax declaration via the Internet instead of having to send people to the tax agency to submit tax declarations manually every month and every quarter has also reduced a lot of congestion and inconvenience for taxpayers.

Up to now, the number of enterprises operating online to declare taxes has increased significantly compared to the target of 65% at the beginning of 2014. The Ministry of Finance's calculations show that the total number of hours spent on tax payment has been reduced by implementing the solutions of Circular 119/2014/TT-BTC up to 201.5 hours, which is a remarkable change for the tax sector itself. General Director of the General Department of Taxation Bui Van Nam said that the provisions of Decree No. 91/2014/ND-CP dated October 1, 2014 amending and supplementing a number of articles in 4 other decrees on tax have had a great impact in reducing the number of hours spent on tax payment.

The problem is that newly issued documents have really been effective, for example, increasing the quarterly VAT declaration revenue has helped reduce the frequency of VAT declaration and payment for enterprises from 12 times/year to 4 times/year, reducing 8 times of tax declaration and payment. For corporate income tax, new regulations have helped reduce the frequency of tax declaration and payment from 5 times/year to 1 time/year, accordingly, enterprises only have to declare and finalize corporate income tax once/year and make provisional payment quarterly. Therefore, the total number of tax payment hours reduced when implementing the solutions of Decree 91/2014/ND-CP that the Tax sector measured and confirmed by the World Bank is 88.36 hours. In addition, the total number of tax payment hours reduced when implementing the solutions of Law No. 71/2014/QH13 of the National Assembly has also reached 80 hours - General Director Bui Van Nam said.

Target only 171 hours left to pay taxes

In a general assessment of the efforts to accelerate the progress of tax administrative reform, the Ministry of Finance said that as of January 1, 2015, after implementing solutions under the authority of the National Assembly, the Government, and the Ministry of Finance, the number of hours for tax compliance had been reduced by 370 hours/year. And to achieve the goal of reducing the number of hours for tax payment to 171 hours/year in 2015, it is necessary to reduce another 415.5 hours to 121.5 hours (of which, VAT must be reduced by 265 hours to 55 hours; CIT must be reduced by 150 hours to 67 hours). Deputy Minister of Finance Do Hoang Anh Tuan said that one of the outstanding issues is that the resolution of problems related to tax policies and procedures or the response of tax authorities at higher levels to tax authorities at lower levels is not timely.

According to Deputy Minister Do Hoang Anh Tuan, although the sector has reviewed and reduced 53 administrative procedures and simplified 262 other administrative procedures, it is clear that the number of procedures is still too large and complicated, affecting taxpayers' time. As of December 31, 2014, there were still 432 administrative procedures in the tax sector, of which the local level had 246 procedures at the department level and 182 procedures at the branch level. In addition, 24/70 important procedures on tax registration, declaration, tax payment, tax refund, tax inspection, tax audit, tax complaint settlement... of taxpayers have not been revised, supplemented comprehensively, completely and ensuring full compliance with the requirements on administrative procedure reform to bring new policies, regimes and regulations on administrative procedure reform into real life. The reform of tax administrative procedures for individuals and business households (VAT, personal income tax for business households, registration tax, non-agricultural land use tax, etc.) has not been fundamentally innovated, the organization of tax collection has not yet created convenience for people; the application of IT in tax management in this area is still limited.

Achieving the 2015 target of tax declaration and payment time being reduced to no more than 121.5 hours/year; the rate of enterprises declaring tax electronically reaching over 95%; the rate of enterprises paying tax electronically reaching at least 90%; completing the construction and publicizing the tax refund database, ensuring tax refunds in accordance with the regime and at least 90% within the prescribed time; ensuring taxpayers' complaints are resolved in accordance with regulations and at least 90% within the prescribed time according to the law requires the Tax sector to make more efforts to achieve the set target - Deputy Minister Do Hoang Anh Tuan said.

Red River