Tax Department requests to complete slow VAT refund dossiers before May 2025

NDO - Despite achieving an electronic tax refund rate of up to 99% and actively contributing to supporting businesses, many localities are still slow in processing value-added tax refund dossiers. The Tax Department has just requested its affiliated units to urgently review, classify, and completely handle backlog dossiers, striving to have no overdue dossiers after May 2025, except in cases of suspected fraud.

In the document issued on April 11, 2025, the Tax Department requested the Heads of Regional Tax Branches, Heads of Departments and units under the Department to focus on implementing a series of solutions to speed up the process of resolving value-added tax refunds, especially for export enterprises and investment projects.

According to the report, in 2024, the tax sector issued 19,806 tax refund decisions with a total refund amount of VND 156,941 billion, an increase of 5% over the same period in 2023. In the first quarter of 2025, 3,911 decisions were issued, refunding VND 31,128 billion, an increase of 6% over the same period last year. In particular, the electronic tax refund system has been effective, with 99% of applications submitted online and about 86% of "refund first, check later" applications processed within 6 working days.

However, the Tax Department admitted that in some localities, the progress of handling documents is still slow, not meeting the time requirements as prescribed, causing difficulties for businesses in capital turnover.

To overcome this situation, the Tax Department has directed units to implement four key groups of tasks. First is to comprehensively review enterprises that export goods, services and investment projects in the area. Tax authorities must proactively support from tax declaration to tax refund filing, ensuring that the implementation process is in accordance with regulations, avoiding unnecessary problems for taxpayers.

The Tax Department requires classifying all remaining VAT refund dossiers by subject group and item, focusing on key export industries such as textiles, footwear, wood, agricultural and aquatic products, iron and steel, electronic components, etc. It is necessary to clearly identify the specific causes of delays, obstacles and the deadline for processing each dossier. In particular, units must arrange enough human resources, assign specific tasks, organize weekly supervision and strive to have no overdue dossiers by the end of May 2025, except for dossiers with signs of high risk or suspected fraud.

For files that show no signs of risk and have a good compliance history, the Tax Department requires timely resolution according to regulations. On the contrary, for files suspected of fraud such as buying and selling invoices and profiting from tax refunds, units need to coordinate closely with competent authorities to verify and handle, and clearly notify taxpayers to avoid unnecessary complaints.

Notably, the Tax Department has requested that the Sub-Departments assign civil servants to directly support businesses, from guiding documents to organizing dialogues to resolve difficulties. The dialogue period is set from April 15 to April 29, 2025. Issues beyond the authority must be promptly reported to the Tax Department for appropriate direction.

The Tax Department also requested the Branch Directors and heads of departments and units to immediately implement the above-mentioned directives, considering them as criteria for evaluating work efficiency, especially in the context where the business community is expecting active support from tax authorities in the process of recovering and developing production and business.

Source: https://nhandan.vn/cuc-thue-yeu-cau-dut-diem-ho-so-hoan-thue-gia-tri-gia-tang-cham-truoc-thang-52025-post871980.html