Speed ​​up tax refunds for businesses with good compliance

Regarding the value-added tax refund policy, National Assembly Deputy Sung A Lenh (Lao Cai) proposed the need to synchronously deploy solutions, including speeding up the automatic tax refund process for businesses with a good compliance history.

Delegates discussed in Group 4, morning of December 8

Continuing the program of the Tenth Session, on the morning of December 8, the National Assembly discussed in groups the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Value Added Tax.

Giving opinions at Group 4 (including National Assembly delegations from Khanh Hoa , Lai Chau and Lao Cai provinces), delegates basically agreed with the necessity of amending the Law.

National Assembly Deputy Sung A Lenh (Lao Cai) said that the Government's submission to the National Assembly for consideration of amending the Law at this National Assembly session is "very urgent and necessary", aiming to remove bottlenecks and obstacles arising from practice, especially overcoming the consequences of natural disasters, storms and floods and supporting the restoration of production and business activities in the agricultural sector according to economic and social practices.

“I agree with and support the Government's plan to amend the Law on the principle of prioritizing the removal of difficulties for businesses, while ensuring fairness and consistency of policies,” said delegate Sung A Lenh.

Article 1 of the draft Law amending and supplementing Clause 1, Article 5 (on non-taxable subjects) stipulates: Products of crops, planted forests, livestock, aquaculture, and fishing that have not been processed into other products or have only undergone normal preliminary processing by organizations and individuals that produce, catch, and sell them themselves, and at the import stage.

Enterprises, cooperatives, and cooperative unions that purchase unprocessed crops, planted forests, livestock, and aquaculture products or fishery products that have only undergone normal preliminary processing and sell them to other enterprises, cooperatives, and cooperative unions are not required to calculate value added tax according to regulations of the Minister of Finance.

National Assembly Deputy Sung A Lenh (Lao Cai) delivered a speech.

Agreeing with this regulation, delegate Sung A Lenh said that this amendment will directly resolve cash flow pressure for export enterprises, by eliminating the requirement to pay tax in advance and wait for tax refund; at the same time, the policy will overcome discrimination between domestic and exported agricultural products, thereby improving the competitiveness of Vietnamese agricultural products.

National Assembly Deputy Dang Thi My Huong (Khanh Hoa) cited the Economic and Financial Committee's Inspection Report, expressing concern that if this regulation is not strict, it could create loopholes for the purchase of fake invoices to legalize input VAT refunds.

The delegate suggested that the drafting agency should review and research this opinion to have strict regulations to avoid fraud.

Regarding value added tax refund, Point c, Clause 9, Article 15 of the current Law stipulates: business establishments eligible for tax refund as prescribed in this Article must meet the condition that the seller has declared and paid value added tax as prescribed for invoices issued to the business establishment requesting the tax refund.

Delegate Sung A Lenh said that this is a qualitative bottleneck and a major practical shortcoming.

“In practice, exporters and buyers do not have the legal, technical, or time tools to check the seller's tax compliance, which puts them at risk of delays or tax refund rejections due to the fault of an independent entity. This also prolongs the tax refund period, stagnates capital, causes serious financial pressure, and directly affects the liquidity of the enterprise.”

Analyzing like that, delegate Sung A Lenh expressed his agreement with the draft Law's abolishment of the provision at point c, clause 9, Article 15.

However, to ensure control of power and prevent fraud, delegate Sung A Lenh suggested that synchronous solutions need to be implemented.

First, consider building a public technical mechanism to help businesses look up the tax compliance status of the seller.

Second, speed up the automatic tax refund process for businesses with a good compliance history.

Third, directing the implementation of tax refunds within the prescribed time limit - this is the most basic problem causing capital stagnation, delegate Sung A Lenh emphasized.

National Assembly Delegate Dang Thi My Huong (Khanh Hoa) speaks

In addition, according to delegate Dang Thi My Huong, in Clause 5, Article 9, the draft Law removes the provision of applying value-added tax rates to unprocessed agricultural products used as animal feed and medicinal materials.

The delegate suggested that the drafting agency review this provision, because if the content of the provision in Clause 1, Article 5 is kept the same, then removing Clause 5, Article 9 will not be necessary. “The drafting agency needs to review to avoid legal problems in amending the content of the provisions in Article 5,” the delegate stated.

Source: https://daibieunhandan.vn/day-nhanh-viec-hoan-thue-cho-doanh-nghiep-tuan-thu-tot-10399626.html