Nghe An: Despite drastic collection, tax debt is still difficult to reduce

(Baonghean) - In the first 6 months of 2016, the work of collecting tax arrears in the province was extremely difficult, the branches had to carry out enforcement activities even with small debts... However, up to now, the tax debt is about 900 billion VND.

Difficulty in debt collection

What the officers and employees of Nam Dan Tax Department are quite worried about is that the revenue in the area is very limited while tax debt is increasing. In the first 6 months of 2016, tax debt in Nam Dan was 38 billion VND, of which land debt was 18 billion VND, the rest was debt from non-state enterprises and individual businesses. In the first 6 months of the year, the Department collected 56 billion VND, so compared to the debt, it can be seen that the ratio is quite high.

Head of Nam Dan Tax Department Tran Dinh Thanh said: The Department has worked regularly and resolutely, but businesses with debts mainly in basic construction have lost their ability to pay in previous years and now have become bad debts, most of their assets are mortgaged to banks, and have stopped operating.

One-stop transaction at Nam Dan Tax Department.

We contacted 3 businesses with large debts, but most of them could not be contacted. Coming to Tay Truong Son Construction Investment Joint Stock Company, which currently owes 3 billion VND in taxes, Mr. Ho Viet Loc - Director of the company said: The company has constructed many projects since 2011, 2012... until now, many state projects, Party A has not paid the debt, leading to the company owing taxes. In addition, the main contractor has not paid for many projects.

The company's director also explained that the business also hopes to recover, have jobs and have money to pay tax debts, but it is increasingly difficult, interest is compounding, while the bank loan has not been paid yet; he hopes the tax authority will postpone the debt and not charge interest, while still creating favorable conditions for invoices for the business to operate.

However, according to Mr. Tran Dinh Thanh, if a business wants to reissue invoices, it must pay 1/3 of the old tax debt. Dai Thanh Loi Company (Hamlet 4, Nam Anh - Nam Dan) currently owes over 1 billion VND in taxes. Mr. Pham Ngoc Loi - Director of the company said: The reason is that the company declared everything to the tax authority, but has not been paid. For the past 3 years, the company has not been in operation; it owes interest, taxes, and the director is unable to pay. Some projects such as Tan Dan Hung Tien School, Nam Anh Commune People's Committee... owe the company unpaid debts.

One of the reasons for tax debt is due to the difficult production and business situation of enterprises, many enterprises fall into a state of loss, losing the ability to pay such as 576 General Construction and Trading Company Limited (Nam Dan) owes 1,917 million VND in tax, Construction, Traffic, and Irrigation Investment and Consulting Joint Stock Company (Nam Dan) owes 736 million VND, An Chau Paper Company (Vinh City) owes 5 billion VND... The assets of these enterprises have been mortgaged at the bank, there is no job to pay the debt. Private transport tax is owed more than 2,572 billion VND, the reason is that there is no strong enough basis to collect, relying on communes and branch officials, especially when the province has abolished transport tax collection stations at the registration agency.

The tax debt of Hoang Mai Town Tax Department is currently quite high: From 31 billion VND in 2013 to 24 billion VND in 2014, by 2015 the debt was 21 billion VND and now it is 18 billion VND. Of this 18 billion VND, 14.3 billion VND is owed to absconding businesses from 2013 and earlier, and cannot be collected.

In 2015, Vinh City Tax Department had the highest tax collection ever with 1,500 billion VND and in the first 6 months of this year, tax collection reached 994.4 billion VND. However, tax debt is also quite large: Tax debt from 2015 transferred over: 203,906 million VND. Of which, 3,404 enterprises owe tax with 193,472 million VND. Tax debt in wards and communes has 8,232 households; debt 10,434 million VND. Bad debt up to June 30, 2016 has 53 enterprises, tax debt amount is 66,335 million VND.

Enhance the solution

Since the beginning of the year, Nam Dan Tax Department, through debt management and tax debt enforcement measures, has collected VND 8,416 million in tax arrears from the previous year. To collect tax arrears, Nam Dan Tax Department has implemented many strong measures, including bank account enforcement. However, this measure has encountered difficulties because some enterprises do not comply with providing cash flow accounts; only providing accounts with no balance, or small balances that are not enough to enforce. Collecting information about enterprise accounts takes a lot of time because tax-debt enterprises open accounts at many banks located in many different locations.

The Tax Department has reviewed very carefully and thoroughly to avoid affecting the production and business activities of enterprises. Enforcing tax debts by announcing that invoices are invalid will directly affect production and business activities; leading to enterprises not being able to sell goods, not having revenue, and therefore not being able to pay tax debts. When implementing this measure, the Tax Department must also review carefully, comply with regulations, and ensure fairness among taxpayers.

Mr. Phan Van Viet - Head of Vinh City Tax Department said: "The tax amount arising from January to June 2016 is 387,810 million VND, the department has collected 378,434 million VND in the first 6 months of the year; including the collection of old debt from 2015 and before is 67,184 million VND; thus, the tax debt up to June 2016 is 213,282 million VND. Due to the high budget revenue plan, debt management and debt collection is one of the important tasks that must be performed.

Vinh City Tax Department has established 3 interdisciplinary teams to coordinate in collecting and handling tax debts; of which 1 interdisciplinary team handles and urges tax debt collection at enterprises in the basic construction industry; 1 team handles and urges debt collection at enterprises with land revenues; 1 team handles and urges debt collection at the remaining enterprises with tax debts of over 50 million VND. After the inspection and handling process, an additional 34,514 million VND was collected.

In the past time, to strictly implement the Law on Tax Administration and strictly handle cases of deliberately delaying tax debts, Vinh City Tax Department has enforced tax debt collection for 73 cases, which are 73 business households with tax debt of 527 million VND. Enforcement through the accounts of 2 enterprises with land use fee debt of 58,080 million VND; handling files without calculating late payment according to Circular 26 for 22 enterprises with tax debt of 13,117 million VND; enforcement through accounts of 3,207 joint stock commercial banks with tax debt of 573,025 million VND; notification of invalid invoices for 77 enterprises with tax debt of 13,277 million VND.

In addition, the branch posted information of taxpayers on the mass media 1,340 times with the tax debt of 787,592 million VND; Directed the Inter-ward and Commune Tax Teams and Vinh market to resolutely implement measures to enforce tax debt collection for business households by seizing assets, not allowing tax arrears to last long, and organized the enforcement of seizing assets of many debting households in Le Mao ward, Truong Thi ward, Vinh market, and Hung Dung market.

The Department also coordinated to review and handle virtual debt on the industry's application after closing the books and adjusting the incorrect tax debt of VND 1,446 million.

Tax debt is extremely difficult, especially when businesses are experiencing changes such as changing business names, government and unit personnel changes, old debts not yet collected, new debts arising... Total tax debt in the province as of June 30 is 926 billion VND, down 13.3 billion VND compared to the same period, a debt ratio lower than the national average.

The Tax Department is resolutely directing units and branches to classify debts and properly implement tax debt management procedures. At the same time, it is necessary to implement debt collection targets, urge tax debt collection, implement tax debt collection measures and manage tax debt records scientifically and strictly. For difficult-to-collect debts, it is also necessary to classify and handle them according to each subject such as: Taxpayers who have stopped doing business, are waiting for dissolution or are unable to pay...

Chau Lan