Businesses still have to rely on tax officials?

The attitude of tax officials continues to be identified by many experts as one of the major barriers for businesses.

At the seminar "Entrepreneurs' Day on Removing Business Barriers" organized by Investment Forum Electronic Magazine on October 11, Mr.Mr. Doan Duy Khuong - Vice President of VCCI said that over the past years, Vietnam's GDP growth rate has been among the highest in the region and the world, but is slowing down due to increasing competition between countries.regions and countries, between businesses and from the product itself.

However, according to Mr. Khuong, the research results by VCCI in collaboration with the ASEAN Business Council show that the information is not optimistic for Vietnam. The criteria of financial environment and infrastructure show that Vietnam is at the bottom of the list compared to other ASEAN countries. The problem is how to remove barriers and promote business development.

12 experts representing management agencies and businesses present at the seminar presented different aspects of business barriers related to many fields.However, in that, the"Complaints" about administrative procedures with tax authorities continue to receive the attention of the majority of opinions.

Ms. Huong Vu - Deputy General Director of Ernst & Young Vietnam said that Resolution 35 on supporting and developing enterprises until 2020 issued in May clearly shows the Government's viewpoint. She also said that manyThe previous meeting discussed policies to turn Vietnam into a country that supports small and medium-sized enterprises as well as foreign-invested groups.

Ms. Huong Vu said that barriers from tax authorities still have a significant impact on business operations. Photo: Bizlive

However, as a unit that has contributed opinions on many draft laws and circulars, accompanying foreign-invested enterprises in Vietnam, Ms. Huong said that the problem of how to concretize the resolution into reality is very difficult. After the resolution, circulars, sub-licenses... below are still born one after another.

The representative of the auditing unit gave an example in the field of tax collection and tax refund, when manyMultinational enterprises have entered Vietnam, but accounting books still have to be printed.

"Meanwhile, for a company that performs 20,000-30,000 transactions per day, where can it find space to store records of those transactions in a year?The tax authorities do not listen to requests to send soft copies. If businesses do not pay enough, they will not be refunded, forcing them to run everywhere to get enough hard copies of documents. This is the right of businesses to enjoy, but they have to ask and beg for it," Ms. Huong shared. According to her, the tax collection department also faces a similar situation.

Agreeing with this point of view, Mr. Phi Ngoc Trinh - Deputy General Director of Ho Guom Garment Joint Stock Company admitted that there is a situation where tax officials demandrecords from 7-8 years ago that businesses cannot store hard copies of. He said that this situation is due toTax officials often have an attitude of prying and finding fault with businesses.

"They think that I came because the business did something wrong, and that I came because there must be 'something'. Currently, our company operates in 9 provinces with 9 tax collection teams, and each team has a different attitude," the business representative expressed.

He also said that the attitudes of tax collectors have changed in recent years, butBusiness owners are still not satisfied with this."Tax officials must advise and come with the mindset of supporting businesses."But to change the ethics of civil servants, we must change their income," he said.

Ms. Thai Huong - Chairwoman of TH True Milk Board of Directors also recounted the story of having difficulties due to different views on applying the tax schedule. This made her onceShe was detained at the airport for not paying enough tax. According to the tax table of the management agency at that time, she was a tax evader.

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Lawyer Truong Thanh Duc - Chairman of Basico Law Firm said that, besides the attitude of officials, the way the law is built also has many shortcomings that cause difficulties for businesses.Drafting teams are sometimes assigned by regulatory agencies.It takes a long time to do this job, but it gets delayed and in the end has to be rushed.

"Only a few decrees that have actually changed are implemented by research institutes. If we leave it to the ministries and branches to do it, it will be even stricter, not more flexible. For example,The amendment to the Investment Law in October proposed removing 67 business conditions. It sounds great, but in reality, very little was removed, while more was added," Mr. Duc said.

This expert also believes that the views on innovation are only at the Government level, the issuance of documents has not changed much, while many ministries and officials are still trying to find ways to create barriers for businesses.

"The change in tax officials is not substantial. The tax collection habits of officials in this sector for many years have been imposing and questionable, possibly stemming from other motives," Mr. Duc commented.

According to Ms. Huong, to solve this problem, it is necessary to change tax officials' mindset from questioning and imposing to supporting and cooperating with businesses.

"Tax collectors today are antagonistic. The head of the Hanoi Tax Department once told me: 'I collect taxes to collect the hearts of the people'. However, the problem is how you convey that point of view to your employees," Ms. Huong commented.

To dispel the suspicion of tax officials, she said there should also be a more correct view on the issue of transfer pricing."Transfer pricing is just a financial tool to increase profits, there is nothing wrong with it. The problem is whether Vietnam accepts transfer pricing and to what extent?", this expert said.

Sharing this view, Dr. Vo Tri Thanh also expressed that tax evasion is a violation but tax avoidance is not.

"Transfer pricing is a tool to optimize operations between large corporations and their subsidiaries. Recently, at the G20 Summit, there was a meeting on this issue. The G20 itself has not yet made any common commitments on transfer pricing. However, they have drawn up some methods.One is to adjust legal regulations to limit tax differences between Vietnam and other countries. And two.is to share information and coordinate between countries to avoid tax evasion as mentioned," Mr. Thanh said.

According to VNE