Hai Phong Customs urgently deals with tax debts

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Hai Phong Customs urgently deals with tax debts.

Hai Phong is Customs Department with the amount of recovered tax debt ranked second in the total 35 local Customs Departments (after Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department).

Debts are mainly related to Customs post-clearance audits

Immediately after the General Department of Vietnam Customs decided to allocate norms for recovery of tax debts, the Hai Phong Customs Department allocated specific debt collection criteria for each unit. In units newly assigned by the Hai Phong Customs Departments, there were 3 units with the debt recovery of more than 10 billion vnd, including the Department of Customs post-clearance audit with 78.184 billion vnd; the Customs Branch of Hai Phong port, Zone 1 with 14.695 billion vnd; and the Customs Branch of Dinh Vu port with 13.54 billion vnd.

Looking at the above indicators, it is easy to see that the problem of tax debts in Hai Phong is basically similar to many other localities, arising from post-clearance audits. For example, at HCM City Customs Department, the Customs Branch of post-clearance audit is also the unit which has to collect the largest amount of 762 billion vnd, accounting for over 81% of the total debts. Or the Department of Customs post-clearance audits (under the General Department of Vietnam Customs) has to recover 150 billion vnd, accounting for more than 11% of recoverable debts of the Customs. There are many cases when the Customs office issues tax assessment but enterprises have not agreed and complied with the complaint, so the taxes have not yet been paid, causing a high tax debt.

The leader of the Customs Branch of post-clearance audits (the Hai Phong aiHCustoms Department) said that the main reason leading to large tax debts in enterprises was due to some of the most important cases of arrears, especially automobiles. For example, the collection of Regal Automobile Joint Stock Company was nearly 50 billion vnd, accounting for 64% of the total tax debts of the Customs Branch. Currently, the company is complaining at the second time and the General Department of Customs is still implementing the order of settlement in accordance with the Law. Another case of tax debts (about 6 billion vnd) has been eliminated by the General Department of Vietnam Customs, and then the Customs Branch is urgently handling to remove this tax debt of the business.

The leaders of the Customs Branch of post-clearance audits added that in addition to big cases, some cases have smaller collections and enterprises try to escape, so the Customs Branch must urgently apply measures to recover.

The Customs Branch of Hai Phong port, Zone 1 is the second largest debt recovery unit with the amount of nearly 14.7 billion vnd, with more than 14.5 billion vnd from debt overdue for 90 days.

The manager of the Customs Branch of Hai Phong port, Zone 1, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thu Hien said that the debt was more than 14.5 billion vnd (including late payment) of a case of import machinery and equipment to create assets. A number of tax debts was calculated by the Customs Branch till 31^st December 2016. In this case, the enterprise was entitled to an extension of 60 days and until 9^th March 2017, the enterprise paid the full amount of taxes and late payment.

Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thu Hien said that after the debt was settled, a number of overdue tax debts for 90 days at the unit were only about 260 million vnd, which was related to the tax assessment from Customs post-clearance audit. Thus, the Customs Branch is working aggressively to handle it.

Actively recovering tax debts

Although the tax debts of the Hai Phong Customs Department only account for less than 10% of total tax debts of the Customs (according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs’s Decision 1084 / QD-TCHQ of 31^st March 2017), the Department has been implementing many measures to recover tax debts.

A representative of the Import-Export Duty Division (the Hai Phong Customs Department) said that from the beginning of 2017, the Hai Phong Customs Department has determined that the collection of State budget revenues is a central political task. In particular, the management of tax debts to effectively handle and recover is one of the most important tasks and solutions.

For effective implementation, the Hai Phong Customs Department has been stepping up the implementation of many solutions such as establishment of a team to urge the collection of tax debts to regularly direct the classification and handling of tax debts, implementing measures of coercive regulation, urgently handling tax debts which are likely to be collected right at the beginning of the year; increasing the collection of overdue debts of registration forms from 1^st July 2013 through understanding the cause of each claim; not to arise overdue debts in 2017.

The Hai Phong Customs Department has also regularly reviewed and assessed the status of each enterprise to provide effective debt settlement measures for classifying bad debts.

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In addition, the Hai Phong Customs Department regularly check, review and urgently apply the coercive measures for bad debts which are not recoverable to classify them into the non-recoverable debt group, ensuring proper reflection of the debts.