People are fed up with electronic invoices because they are expensive.

The Ministry of Finance is drafting a Decree on invoices that aims to expand the use of electronic invoices starting in 2018, but businesses are hesitant about this type of invoice because it is too expensive.

Concerns about rising costs.

As one of the businesses implementing electronic invoices (e-invoices), at a recent workshop to gather feedback on the draft regulations for e-invoices, a representative from Orient Commercial Bank (OCB) stated that e-invoices help businesses save on storage and printing costs and facilitate information and revenue management. However, according to the draft, from the beginning of 2018, e-invoices with authentication codes from the tax authority will incur a fee of 300 VND per invoice. Based on the current volume of invoices in use, this translates to an additional 300 million VND per month for the bank.

"The purpose of using e-invoices is to help businesses save costs, but applying this regulation is causing businesses to incur excessive expenses," this person questioned. For this reason, a tax accountant at a bank with total assets of 260 trillion VND calculated that the bank issues approximately 3 million invoices per month. Applying a verification code fee on each invoice would result in an additional cost of up to 900 million VND.

Many experts are concerned that the tax authority's technology infrastructure will be overloaded when businesses register to use electronic invoices.

Explaining the application of the 300 VND/invoice fee, the Ministry of Finance stated that over 90% of businesses that file directly through the tax authority's electronic portal do not have to pay usage fees. This creates significant pressure, requiring the General Department of Taxation's information technology system to be constantly upgraded to meet the demand.

Providing electronic invoices with tax authority codes free of charge would lead to a similar situation for the tax sector's information technology system. Another reason, according to the ministry, is that currently there are 8 businesses providing value-added services for electronic transactions in the tax sector (referred to as T-Vans), but the activities of these T-Vans are very limited.

The tax authority's free provision of e-invoice services would render intermediary organizations providing e-invoice services inoperable, as all businesses would opt for the free option. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance proposes a plan where both the tax authority and T-Van charge fees for providing e-invoice services with tax authority codes.

Overload capacity

Besides the issue of fees, the rapid adoption of e-invoices has raised concerns among experts that "haste makes waste." Lawyer Tran Xoa, Director of Minh Dang Quang Law Firm, commented that with only a few thousand businesses registering to use e-invoices in seven years, the draft's target of 400,000 businesses switching from paper invoices to e-invoices is a significant challenge.

Will the tax authority's technological infrastructure be able to handle the simultaneous implementation by all businesses? Not to mention, with only a little over three months left in 2017, and the decree not yet issued, how will businesses implement it? Furthermore, several issues arising during the use of e-invoices need to be clearly defined. For example, what type of invoice will businesses use when transporting goods so that authorities such as market management agencies can identify them as not being smuggled goods during inspections?

Agreeing with the above viewpoint, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Tuan, Vice Chairman of the Dong Nai Import-Export Association, said that it would be very difficult to convert all businesses to using electronic invoices in a few months, so implementation needs to be phased. According to the Law on Supporting Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, tax and accounting procedures will be simplified to adjust and convert business households into enterprises, aiming for 1 million enterprises in 2020.

Meanwhile, these businesses mostly employ part-time accountants, and many business owners issue invoices themselves, not accountants. When using e-invoices, businesses will have to purchase accounting software to connect and use them. The accounting software also needs continuous upgrades, so businesses have to pay maintenance fees.

Meanwhile, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially micro-enterprises, are still unfamiliar with e-invoicing and need a transitional period to familiarize themselves with it. Once they see the benefits, businesses will confidently switch over; rushing the process will make it very difficult to achieve the goals in both quantity and quality.

According to Thanh Nien Newspaper