Preventing e-invoice fraud: Tax sector wants ministries and sectors to join in

ANTD.VN - Electronic invoices are expected to limit the illegal purchase and sale of invoices, but to date, this situation is still quite common, despite the tax industry's efforts to combat fraud.

Buying and selling, invoice fraud is still rampant

Previously, the use of electronic invoices was expected by the tax industry to limit fraud. The General Department of Taxation's leaders said that with electronic invoices, all transactions are tracked at the tax authority and the tax authority will use electronic solutions such as trend analysis, "big data" or AI to detect violations. More importantly, the verification of violations is done by the tax authority, not by other related agencies.

After more than a year of implementing electronic invoices nationwide, nearly 4 billion electronic invoices have been issued. The General Department of Taxation has also deployed the Electronic Invoice Database Center to detect signs of risk in the issuance and use of electronic invoices, helping to track down and prevent businesses from using illegal invoices.

However, in reality, electronic invoice fraud is still quite common. Not only does it operate secretly, but it also happens openly on social networks. Just type the phrase "buy and sell invoices" in the search bar and dozens of groups with tens of thousands of members will appear on Facebook. There are many members posting articles selling/buying value-added tax (VAT) invoices with public contact information.

The General Department of Taxation recently had to send a document to the Ministry of Information and Communications to join in preventing this situation. The General Department of Taxation said that recently, there has been a phenomenon of some businesses, organizations, and individuals deliberately taking advantage of social network space, using technology to post information, and advertise illegal buying and selling of value-added invoices, causing great damage to the state budget.

Accordingly, the General Department of Taxation requested the Ministry of Information and Communications to coordinate with the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information and relevant units to coordinate with tax authorities to prevent, remove and handle websites with signs of information and advertising the buying and selling of invoices on cyberspace.

Preventing electronic invoice fraud: Tax sector wants ministries and sectors to join in photo 1

The situation of illegal trading of electronic invoices is still very complicated.

The General Department of Taxation also requested all tax departments to review information about illegal electronic invoice sales on cyberspace platforms; collect information of organizations and individuals illegally selling electronic invoices and handle them according to regulations.

“When detecting violations of tax and invoice laws, tax departments will process or consolidate records, transfer them to the police for handling according to regulations, and at the same time notify relevant tax authorities and enter all information into the invoice verification application,” Acting Director General of the General Department of Taxation Mai Xuan Thanh requested.

Need for synchronous coordination

Pointing out tax fraud loopholes, Ms. Le Thi Duyen Hai - Director of the Tax Declaration and Accounting Department (General Department of Taxation) said: Currently, business registration procedures (including new registration and information change) are very convenient, legal documents of the legal representative or owner only need 1 of 3 types of copies (not required to be notarized or certified): identity card or citizen identification card or passport. The application is submitted electronically, individuals do not have to go to the business registration office; the accompanying legal documents are scanned copies.

The business registration system has not yet automatically controlled data, so there are many cases of signs of using inappropriate legal documents of individuals when registering a business; declaring incorrect business registration information; individuals registering multiple businesses, then abandoning the business location to establish another business with the purpose of buying and selling, using illegal invoices...

Taking advantage of the above openness, businesses established for the purpose of invoice fraud often operate for a short period of about 1-2 years, then temporarily suspend or stop operations but do not complete dissolution procedures with the business registration agency and tax authorities to avoid inspection and examination by competent authorities.

When the tax authority suspects and brings it in for inspection or examination, the enterprise has completed procedures to temporarily suspend operations or is no longer operating at the registered business address.

In addition, to avoid inspection and detection by tax authorities and state management agencies, subjects often change business locations; individuals living in this area or having a business location in this area but the head office of the enterprise is in other areas where they live and do business...

The business location is not real or the rental contract is fake to register the business location; the business registration agency and tax agency do not have information to check whether the business location is at the correct registered address or not...

Therefore, according to the representative of the General Department of Taxation, to completely prevent the use of illegal invoices, it is necessary to have the synchronous participation of functional sectors such as: police agencies, customs agencies, and business registration agencies.

Accordingly, the Tax sector recommends tightening regulations on establishing new enterprises; controlling information of individuals participating in establishing and managing enterprises; synchronizing, standardizing and authenticating all personal identification information of individuals participating in establishing enterprises; adding criminal records to the dossier for registering to establish enterprises, dossiers for changing business registration contents of individuals participating in establishing and managing enterprises to comply with the provisions of the Enterprise Law...

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