According to the Law on Tax Administration, one of the responsibilities of taxpayers is to register for tax, use tax codes as prescribed; declare taxes accurately, honestly, completely and submit tax records on time; be responsible before the law for the accuracy, honesty and completeness of tax records. However, in reality, the above regulations have not been thoroughly implemented or taxpayers have found ways to circumvent the law, so there should be strong solutions and measures to collect the correct and full amount of tax to the State budget?
In order to limit tax losses for the State from real estate transfer business activities, tax authorities need to ensure that all activities generating revenue in the field of taxable real estate transfer activities must be monitored and taxed. In addition, if there is profit from real estate transfer and sale activities, it must be subject to personal income tax according to regulations. To implement this, agencies, departments and sectors need to coordinate to build a database on real estate prices.
Accordingly, on the one hand, it creates more favorable conditions for state management in this field and prevents tax losses, but on the other hand, there should be mechanisms to promote transactions through banks. Specifically, the state can review and regularly update the state land price list to be close to 90% to 95% of the market price instead of only about 30% to 50% of the current market price. When granting construction permits for construction projects, the construction industry or urban management must also send the permits to the tax authorities to prevent tax losses in the purchase, transfer and rental of apartments, hotels, schools, villas and resorts in the province.
In the long term, there should be solutions to raise people's awareness in fulfilling their tax obligations; continue to strictly handle the responsibilities of authorities when corruption and waste occur, causing loss of people's tax money.
Faced with the fever of real estate transfer business in recent years, since the end of 2021, the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Taxation have issued many documents implementing solutions to combat tax losses in this field. Along with active advocacy and propaganda, the Ministry of Finance also requested local police and judicial agencies to coordinate in verifying, investigating, and strictly handling tax evasion acts...
Therefore, the Central Government has requested tax authorities to thoroughly grasp the spirit of shifting from "pre-inspection" to "post-inspection" of administrative procedures; localities must urgently study and perfect the legal basis on the price for calculating real estate transfer tax to apply it clearly and transparently based on the analysis of the difference between the actual real estate transaction price and the price declared on the contract, a cause of tax loss.
In Nghe An, a representative of the Tax Department said: Compared to other provinces, Nghe An has implemented instructions on preventing loss of real estate transfer tax revenue carefully and systematically. Implementing the guidance of the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Taxation, along with actively disseminating information to the people, on December 23, 2021, the Tax Department advised the Provincial People's Committee to issue a document assigning relevant departments and branches to advise on the development of land and property price coefficients suitable for the market at each time for the tax sector to refer to; have solutions to combat the situation of declaring two prices, in which the transaction price at the tax authority is too low to "avoid" and "evade" taxes and fees; assign the Department of Justice to direct notary organizations to increase propaganda for people to correctly and fully record real estate transfer prices; the sector also strengthens inspection and supervision to ensure integrity; minimizes the return of documents to people. Thanks to that, up to this point, the budget revenue from real estate transfers has had positive results, there have been no transactions showing signs of "avoidance" and "evasion" of taxes, forcing the tax authority to verify and inspect to determine taxes according to Article 15, Decree 126/2020/ND-CP dated October 19, 2020.
It is known that the functional sector has intervened and discovered a number of cases such as donating land to build roads in rural areas with the purpose of dividing and selling plots of land with large areas in Tan Ky (11 cases), Thai Hoa Town (30 cases), Nam Dan 12 cases, Nghia Dan 43 cases, Quynh Luu 7 cases... Some real estate brokers have the behavior of buying up land from people or large plots of land including garden land, land for perennial crops and then applying to change the purpose to residential land. The functional sector also assessed that the above situation is unhealthy, the subjects take advantage of social networks to spread fake information about planning, new projects, and at the same time conduct sales for people to transact... Currently, the functional sector recommends strengthening inspection and handling of real estate brokerage units that do not meet the conditions...
Nghe An Tax Department said: After more than 4 months of implementing the spirit of the General Department of Taxation's directive on preventing tax losses in real estate transfers, tax revenue from real estate transfers has moved positively. Mr. Vo Duy Duc - Deputy Head of Vinh City Tax Department said: Along with implementing 100% electronic invoices, reviewing and preventing the risk of tax losses in land transfers is a solution that brings many benefits to the tax industry. In Vinh City, through propaganda campaigns, since the beginning of 2022, hundreds of records have declared transfer prices 2 and 3 times higher than the state-regulated prices.
Not only in the fields of real estate, transportation tax, and invoice trading, there are currently certain difficulties in collecting e-commerce taxes that almost everyone can see clearly. Tax authorities are managing two main groups of entities with e-commerce business activities: domestic e-commerce business activities of buying and selling goods and services and cross-border e-commerce.
This is a very large number. The biggest difficulty in managing e-commerce tax at present is that it is not possible to manage all the people doing business online as well as the volume of transactions on e-commerce sites. In Nghe An, through discussions with us, the Department of Industry and Trade and the Market Management Department also admitted that they have not been able to collect statistics on these numbers. The number of people doing business and participating in online trading is very large and the amount of money transacted through banks and accounts is increasing but cannot be managed because they do not register for tax declarations, do not pay taxes, transactions between parties do not show buying and selling due to private chats with each other, the tax authority cannot manage. Therefore, it is not possible to manage all tax revenue sources in this field.
Faced with the difficulties and shortcomings in managing and preventing tax losses in the transport business that we have just mentioned, this issue is being implemented quite well in some tax branches. At Song Lam I Tax Branch, we are coordinating with the People's Committees of communes and towns to invite business households to propagate debt collection work. Issue tax notices, coordinate with sending direct tax collection commissions to urge debt collection, and implement debt notice measures on the commune and town radio system for households that are slow to pay. Strengthen verification of accounts at banks and credit institutions, and verification of assets of business households through the People's Committees of communes and wards.
To combat transport tax losses, some regional tax departments have advised the People's Committees of districts, towns and cities to establish an interdisciplinary team to collect tax debts. The interdisciplinary team has carried out many forms of propaganda and mobilization for business households that do not register, declare and delay paying tax debts. Using loudspeakers to notify business households that still owe taxes, posting the list of business households that still owe taxes on the bulletin boards of communes and wards; inviting business households to come directly to the People's Committees of communes and wards to work.
For debts over 90 days, the Tax Authority issues a decision to enforce the tax administrative decision by appropriate enforcement measures such as publicizing information of tax debtors on mass media... In fact, it is not difficult to collect private transport tax if there is synchronous coordination between the transport sector and the provincial police because every year these vehicles are inspected or inspected when in circulation. The problem is that the Provincial People's Committee needs to have regulations and instructions on assigning tasks for relevant departments and branches to coordinate.
Recently, Nghe An Tax Department has issued a number of projects in this field. On the one hand, the Department is implementing regulations on coordination with the Public Security agency and coordinating with commercial banks to participate in tax collection and other revenues of the state budget in implementing electronic tax payment, electronic tax refund for taxpayers; processing and cross-checking data on electronic tax payment, electronic tax refund; supporting taxpayers in the process of electronic tax payment. Regarding the issue of real estate transfer, the Tax Department has issued Official Dispatch No. 660/CT-NVDTPC dated January 27, 2022 to regional tax branches on solutions to prevent tax loss in business activities and real estate transfer.
The Department also coordinates with relevant agencies to verify businesses that have ceased operations, abandoned their business registration addresses and have not fulfilled their tax obligations, and coordinates with departments, branches, and sectors in the issue of e-commerce tax collection. In addition, it organizes widespread and effective propaganda on tax laws and policies so that people and businesses understand, agree with, and properly implement tax laws and policies on business activities and real estate transfers.
