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 needs to be strong solutions and measures to collect the correct and full amount of tax into 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 do this, agencies, departments and branches 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 also needs to be mechanisms to promote transactions through banks. Specifically, the state can review and update regularly so that the state land price list is close to 90% to 95% of the market price instead of only about 30% to 50% of the current market price. The construction industry or urban management, when granting construction permits, must simultaneously send the permits to the tax authorities to prevent tax losses in the purchase, sale, transfer and rental of apartments, hotels, schools, villas and resorts in the province.
In the long term, there needs to 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 real estate transfer tax calculation prices to apply clearly and transparently based on analysis of the difference between actual real estate transaction prices and prices declared on contracts, 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 in a careful and methodical manner. Implementing the guidance of the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Taxation, along with actively propagating 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 building land and property price coefficients suitable to 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 level at the tax authority is too low to "avoid" and "evade" taxes and fees; assign the Department of Justice to direct notary organizations to strengthen 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 authorities 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 for road construction 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 requesting 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 transactions for people... Currently, the functional sector recommends strengthening inspection and handling of real estate brokerage units that do not operate fully qualified...
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 from 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 real estate sector, 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 subjects with e-commerce business activities: e-commerce business activities of buying and selling domestic goods and services and cross-border e-commerce.
This is a very large number. The biggest difficulty in managing e-commerce tax today is that we have not yet managed the number of 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 yet been able to collect 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, the tax revenue sources in this field have not been fully managed.
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 mandates 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 verify the 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 businesses that do not register, declare, or delay paying tax debts. They have used loudspeakers to notify businesses that still owe taxes, posted lists of businesses that still owe taxes on bulletin boards in communes and wards, and invited businesses 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, collecting private transport tax is not difficult 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 police and coordinating with commercial banks to participate in tax collection and other revenues of the state budget in implementing electronic tax payment and electronic tax refund for taxpayers; processing and checking data on electronic tax payment and 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 competent authorities to verify businesses that have ceased operations, abandoned their business registration addresses, and have not yet 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.
