Suddenly owe tax

People come to submit and complete tax procedures

When filing her 2021 personal income tax refund, Ms. Nguyen Hong ( Hanoi ) discovered that a company had used her personal tax code to falsely declare her income, resulting in nearly 1 million VND in tax payable. She did not know, so this amount became a tax debt.

In addition to the principal and interest of 0.03% per day, Ms. Hong studied the regulations and found that she may have to pay a fine of 15-25 million VND for not filing a tax finalization declaration when having two sources of income.

Worried about losing unnecessary money, she contacted the other company twice to request that the income be removed from the declaration list, but they did not respond. "It was only when I prepared a petition, announcing that I would send a complaint to the tax authorities, that the accountant called back and promised to remove my name," she said.

In 2022, the General Department of Taxation launched the eTax application, helping taxpayers look up information related to tax obligations. Many people, when installing and looking up on this application, discovered income and tax debts that they did not know before. For example, Mr. Vu Van Toan ( Ho Chi Minh City) discovered an income of 10.9 million VND from a bank and more than 60 million VND from a media company.

When he contacted the bank, they explained that this was income from electronic game programs (games) and promotions. He admitted that during that period he participated in referral programs to open accounts and receive commissions, but he affirmed that the income could not reach 10 million VND.

However, to avoid trouble, Mr. Toan chose a compromise solution, asking this bank to provide income documents to complete tax settlement procedures. However, with an income of more than 60 million VND, after more than a week of searching for information, he still has not been able to contact them to verify this income.

In fact, recently there have been cases where businesses used personal information to declare and calculate salary and wage costs when determining corporate income tax obligations while not paying actual income to that individual.

The General Department of Taxation said the reason could be that the actual employer already had a tax code but entered a wrong digit, causing it to match another individual. Or the employer intentionally declared false salary costs when in reality there were no employees to evade taxes.

Tax authorities affirm that thanks to the application of information technology in tax management, they have enough tools to quickly detect businesses using incorrect personal tax codes. At that time, tax officials will determine whether the violation is due to mistake or intentional.

In case of fraud, the tax authority said it can handle it according to civil, administrative and criminal laws. Specifically, if a business declares incorrectly but does not reduce the amount of tax payable or does not increase the amount exempted, reduced or refunded, it will be subject to an administrative fine of 5-8 million VND.

On the contrary, businesses will be fined 20% of the under-declared tax amount or the amount that has been exempted, reduced, or refunded higher, according to Decree 125/2020. However, if they voluntarily remedy the consequences by paying the full amount before being inspected and discovered by the tax authority, they will not be penalized.

In case of signs of crime, the tax authority will transfer the case to the police for prosecution, investigation, indictment and trial.

"Business invoices and documents are kept for at least 10 years, and tax authorities can trace violations from there," said authorities, adding that it is not wise for businesses to create fake documents. They also recommended that business managers need to understand how to manage the business internally.

The General Department of Taxation recommends that everyone be careful when providing personal information. In case of discovering that the tax code is being exploited, stolen or being charged false income tax, people need to inform the tax authority for inspection, verification and handling.

In addition to having their income falsified, many people owe taxes because they do not properly and sufficiently control their personal income. Some cases do not settle taxes so they do not know that they have to pay more money, leading to tax debt.

Every year, Mr. Ha Son (Hanoi) still authorizes the agency to settle taxes on his behalf. In 2022, he had an additional income from commissions from real estate brokerage at another company. When settling, the agency did not declare this amount, leading to him having to pay an additional (collected) amount of nearly 90 million VND due to under-declaration of income payable at that time.

Ms. Nguyen Minh Tam (Ho Chi Minh City) shared the story of being surprised when she learned that she was recorded as owing personal income tax. In 2015, the company did not settle her taxes for personal reasons. The additional tax amount to be paid at that time was more than 2 million VND, but she only discovered it at the end of 2019. After that, she went to the tax office to submit a declaration and pay this tax debt.

However, last year, when checking on the eTax app, the system still showed the late payment penalty from 2015-2019. This amount was initially just over 10,000 VND but increased over time, up to a million VND after 4 years. Ms. Tam said she did not receive any information while the tax authority replied that it had notified the old company. After that, she still paid the full amount because she did not want to affect her personal credit history.

Mr. Thanh Nguyen, an accounting service provider, said that individuals without dependents, if their income is less than 132 million VND a year, can apply for a tax refund. If it is above this amount, after deducting tax, the individual can check on eTax to see how much they have paid in excess or short. For those with dependents, the deductible income can be increased by 52.8 million VND a year for each additional dependent.

According to Mr. Thanh, freelancers are almost unaware of the issue of tax debt or personal income tax refund. Meanwhile, those who work permanently in an agency or organization but have additional sources of income from outside often encounter this situation.

The tax authority recommends that taxpayers install the eTax mobile application on their smartphones and look up information about their income sources on this application to ensure full and accurate control of their income sources. In addition, those who are not tax-declaring companies or have two or more sources of income in the year must complete their personal income tax declaration on time every year.

According to the Law on Tax Administration, every year in March and April, taxpayers must make a personal income tax settlement. Normally, the deadline for settlement with the income payer is the last day of March; for individuals who directly settle taxes, the latest is the end of April. This year, due to the coincidence of Sunday and holidays, the deadline has been pushed back to April 1 and May 2, respectively.

TB (according to VnExpress)

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