Suddenly in debt for taxes.

People come to submit and process tax documents.

When claiming her 2021 personal income tax refund, Ms. Nguyen Hong ( Hanoi ) discovered that a company had used her personal tax identification number to falsely declare income, resulting in a tax liability of nearly 1 million VND. Unaware of this, she incurred a tax debt.

In addition to the principal debt, the interest accrues at 0.03% per day. After researching the regulations, Ms. Hong realized she might face a fine of 15-25 million VND for failing to file a tax return when generating two sources of income.

Worried about losing money unnecessarily, she contacted the company twice requesting that the income be removed from the tax declaration list, but they did not respond. "Only when I drafted a complaint letter to the tax authorities did the accountant call back and promise to remove my name," she said.

In 2022, the General Department of Taxation launched the eTax application, allowing taxpayers to look up information related to their tax obligations. Many people discovered previously unknown income and tax debts after installing and using this application. For example, Mr. Vu Van Toan ( Ho Chi Minh City) discovered an income of 10.9 million VND from a bank and over 60 million VND from a media company.

He contacted the bank and was told that this was income from video game programs and promotions. While admitting to participating in referral programs to earn commissions, he insisted that his income could not have reached 10 million VND.

However, to avoid trouble, Mr. Toan chose a compromise, requesting the bank to provide income documents for tax settlement procedures. Nevertheless, despite earning over 60 million VND, after more than a week of searching, he still hasn't been able to contact the bank to verify this income.

In fact, there have been cases recently where businesses have used personal information to declare and calculate salary and wage expenses when determining corporate income tax obligations, even though they did not actually pay any income to those individuals.

The General Department of Taxation stated that the reason could be that the business actually employs workers who already have tax identification numbers but entered one digit incorrectly, resulting in a duplicate number with another individual. Alternatively, the business may intentionally inflate salary expenses when there are no actual employees in order to evade taxes.

The tax authorities assert that thanks to the application of information technology in tax management, they have sufficient tools to quickly detect businesses using incorrect personal tax identification numbers. In such cases, tax officials can determine whether the violation was due to an error or intentional.

In cases of fraud, the tax authorities stated that legal action could be taken under civil, administrative, and criminal law. Specifically, if a business makes false declarations but fails to reduce the amount of tax payable or increase the amount of tax exempted, reduced, or refunded, it will be subject to an administrative fine of 5-8 million VND.

Conversely, businesses are fined 20% of the underdeclared tax amount or the excess amount exempted, reduced, or refunded, according to Decree 125/2020. However, if they voluntarily rectify the situation by paying the full amount before being inspected and discovered by the tax authorities, they will not be penalized.

If there are signs of criminal activity, the tax authorities will transfer the case file to the police for prosecution, investigation, indictment, and trial.

"Business invoices and documents are traced for at least 10 years, allowing tax authorities to uncover irregularities," authorities stated, adding that falsifying documents is not a wise choice for businesses. They also advised business managers to have the necessary knowledge for effective internal management.

The General Department of Taxation advises everyone to be cautious when providing personal information. If you discover that your tax identification number has been misused, stolen, or that you have been falsely charged income tax, please inform the tax authorities for verification and processing.

Besides having their income inflated, many people owe taxes because they don't properly and adequately monitor their personal income. In some cases, individuals do not file their tax returns and therefore are unaware of the additional taxes they need to pay, leading to tax arrears.

Every year, Mr. Ha Son (Hanoi) authorizes his agency to handle his tax settlement. In 2022, he received additional income from commissions from real estate brokerage at another company. During the tax settlement process, his agency failed to declare this income, resulting in him having to pay an additional amount (back taxes) of nearly 90 million VND due to under-declaring taxable income at that time.

Ms. Nguyen Minh Tam (Ho Chi Minh City) shared her surprise at discovering she owed personal income tax. In 2015, her company refused to settle her tax obligations due to personal reasons. The amount of tax due was over 2 million VND, but she only discovered this at the end of 2019. She then went to the tax office to file her tax return and pay the outstanding tax.

However, last year, when checking on the eTax app, the system still displayed late payment penalties from 2015-2019. Initially, this amount was just over 10,000 VND, but it increased over time, reaching millions of VND after four years. Ms. Tam said she didn't receive this information, while the tax authorities claimed they had notified her former company. She subsequently paid the full amount because she didn't want to negatively impact her credit history.

According to Mr. Thanh Nguyen, an accounting service provider, individuals without dependents who earn less than 132 million VND per year can claim a refund for overpaid taxes. Those earning above this amount can check their tax deductions on eTax to see how much they overpaid or underpaid. For individuals with dependents, the tax deduction can be increased by an additional 52.8 million VND per year for each additional dependent.

According to Mr. Thanh, freelancers are almost completely unaware of tax debt or personal income tax refund issues. Meanwhile, those who work full-time in an agency or organization but have additional sources of income often face this situation as well.

The tax authorities recommend that taxpayers install the eTax mobile application on their smartphones and look up information about their income sources on this application to ensure they have full and accurate control over their income. In addition, individuals who are not employed by a company or who have two or more sources of income in a year must complete their personal income tax declarations and payments on time each year.

According to the Tax Administration Law, taxpayers are required to finalize their personal income tax returns annually in March and April. Typically, the deadline for tax settlement with income payers is the last day of March; for individuals settling their taxes directly, it is no later than the end of April. This year, due to a Sunday and a public holiday, these deadlines have been postponed to April 1st and May 2nd, respectively.

TB (according to VnExpress)

Source: https://baohaiduong.vn/bong-dung-no-thue-383116.html