'Bird nest business that issues 30,000 billion VND invoice must be inspected'

At the regular Government press conference in July on the afternoon of August 5, the press asked the leaders of the Ministry of Finance about the slow refund of value-added tax (VAT) due to the difficulty in proving and verifying the origin of goods.

The press also questioned which agency was responsible for the delayed tax refund. What is the total amount of delayed tax refunds to date?

According to Deputy Minister of Finance Nguyen Duc Chi, the regulations on value added tax refunds are divided into two cases: refund first, check later and check first, refund later.

Regarding the deadline, for cases of pre-audit and post-refund, the deadline for completion is 6 days from when the enterprise submits all required documents.

In case of pre-check and post-refund, the completion period is 40 days.

Deputy Minister of Finance Nguyen Duc Chi. (Photo: Nhat Bac)

The Ministry of Finance's leaders also said that in 2022, tax authorities nationwide refunded over 150,000 billion VND, with more than 22,700 tax refund decisions.

In the first 7 months of 2023, 70,500 billion VND was refunded to businesses. Nearly 80% of tax refund cases according to classification belong to the group of refunds first, checks later.

Regarding businesses' reflection of slow tax refunds due to many difficulties in tax refund regulations, according to Mr. Chi, "on the part of state management agencies, once it is slow, the management agency must review, consider and make improvements, so that no one says it is slow anymore."

Specifically, legal regulations and implementation processes will be reviewed to shorten the time and meet the requirements of society and businesses. Regarding specific solutions, the tax sector is building big data on businesses, proactively screening risky businesses first - that is, businesses must check first and refund later.

“There are businesses that only trade in bird’s nests, but issue invoices with revenue of over VND30,000 billion, which clearly needs to be checked. If it is legal, the tax will be refunded very quickly,” Mr. Chi gave an example.

The leaders of the Ministry of Finance also affirmed that they will enhance discipline, strictly handle cases that cause difficulties for businesses, and also resolutely handle tax refund fraud.

Previously, the press reported that although it was only established in October 2022, Hubnest Bird's Nest Company Limited (Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City) issued invoices of up to VND 34,000 billion, equivalent to USD 1.5 billion, on the stock market.

Explaining to the tax authorities, this bird's nest company said that in fact, there were derivative securities trading activities with the code VN30. The company conducted transactions through HSC using the order matching method.

Revenue generated in the first quarter of 2023 amounted to more than VND 34,574 billion, many times higher than the enterprise's registered capital of VND 2.5 billion.

Input invoices do not generate VAT, but the enterprise determines the purchase value on the VAT declaration through the detailed transaction list of HSC Securities Company.

The output invoice of this company states the content as "Index futures contract VN30F2210 October 2022, VN30F2211 November 2022, VN30F2212 December 2022, VN30F2301 January 2023, VN30F2302 February 2023, VN30F2303 March 2023". In the buyer name section, it is "customer does not take invoice".

Therefore, Binh Thanh District Tax Department has sent a verification request to HSC.

HSC said that customers who open trading accounts in accordance with regulations will be provided with services. The same goes for the bird's nest company that issued an invoice of VND34,000 billion. Providing transaction services and securing customer information is HSC's top responsibility and priority. HSC only provides information about customer transactions when requested by authorities.

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