19.1 trillion VND in VAT has been refunded for wood products.

(HNMO) - From January 1, 2022 to May 17, 2023, 4,760 applications for wood and wood products were processed for tax refunds, totaling 19,100 billion VND.

Illustrative image. Photo: Vu Sinh/TTXVN.

On May 27th, the General Department of Taxation announced that, after receiving feedback from the Vietnam Wood and Forest Products Association and several businesses regarding difficulties in processing value-added tax (VAT) refund applications for exported wood and wood products, the General Department of Taxation has quickly compiled the results of processing VAT refund applications in this sector across 63 provinces and cities.

From January 1, 2022 to May 17, 2023, the tax authorities processed 4,760 tax refund applications, totaling 19,100 billion VND. Businesses canceled 215 tax refund requests, totaling 1,514 billion VND, due to self-review and comparison with regulations revealing incomplete or incorrect information requiring data adjustments.

The tax authorities rejected 44 applications, totaling 310 billion VND in requested refunds, due to missing or incorrect forms, incomplete procedures, etc.

The number of tax refund applications that have not yet been processed by the tax authorities is 199, corresponding to a requested refund amount of VND 1.119 billion, representing 4.18% of the total number of applications processed by the tax authorities (199/4,760 applications). Reasons for this include applications still under processing according to regulations; applications being transferred to the police for investigation and verification; businesses requesting a temporary suspension or postponement of the inspection; businesses not yet providing sufficient documentation; or awaiting verification results, etc.

During the process of handling tax refund applications, the tax authorities primarily verify the intermediary businesses that sell goods to the businesses claiming tax refunds. Through this verification, the tax authorities discovered that 264 intermediary businesses had abandoned their business addresses or temporarily ceased operations.

A review of tax data on businesses trading in wood and wood products revealed that 6,712 businesses have abandoned their business addresses, and 897 businesses have temporarily suspended operations. Notably, 24 businesses are involved in cases that have been prosecuted and are under investigation for the crime of illegal invoice trading.

In 2022 and the first five months of 2023, the tax authorities transferred the files of nine businesses that directly requested VAT refunds on wood and wood products to the police for coordinated investigation and verification (excluding intermediary businesses that sold goods to businesses claiming VAT refunds). The reason was that the businesses showed signs of using fraudulent invoices to claim VAT refunds, and the businesses purchased goods from businesses with high tax risks...

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