HCMC: Control of petroleum retail by specialized stamps

	Seal stamp on gasoline and petroleum to prevent loss of revenues
	The price of alcohol stamps in the domestic market in 2016, more than 400 vnd

HCMC shall stick stamps issued by Tax authorities to manage and collect the taxes of petroleum retail.

There are 533 petroleum retail stores

According to HCMC Tax Department, until June 2016, there are 533 petroleum retail stores, equivalent to 3,700 petroleum pumps, including 244 stores belonging to companies and 289 stores belonging to private economic sectors.

Currently, the tax management is implemented according to the mechanism of self-declaration, self-payment, and self-responsibility of taxes by enterprises in accordance with the Tax Administration law. Tax agencies implement their inspection and examination after enterprises declared and paid taxes through tax declarations and financial reports, accounting books and data provided by enterprises. However, the actual violations of some petroleum stores are increasingly sophisticated and complex; besides, consumers' awareness of the use of vouchers, invoices, and collaboration with competent authorities are still limited.

The fact that because of high demand for petroleum and profits, some companies imported floating petroleum on the market to sell and did not declare input, output and pay taxes for above petroleum. This causes not only losses of State revenues but also unfair business and harms consumers because the quality of floating petroleum was not controlled and qualified with requirements of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Some enterprises abuse invoices that were given to buyers to write the volume on invoices provided for business organizations implementing the payment and settlement with the state budget or provided for business stores applying the deduction method to declare and deduct input VAT and implement the cost accounting to reduce taxable income, thereby declining VAT and CIT payable.

Collaboration between relevant ministries and sectors is restricted, collaborative regulation in the management of petroleum business should be perfected to create transparency and clarify responsibilities of each authority, in which the control should be strictly implemented to minimize smuggled petroleum of unknown origin.

Management by specialized stamps

According to Mr. Le Duy Minh, Deputy Director of HCMC Tax Department, the Scheme aims to strictly manage the sales of petroleum stores as a basis for tax declaration to prevent losses of State revenues; to combat the negative acts in buying and selling invoice of petroleum stores; to enhance self-awareness and lay compulsory responsibility on petroleum stores for providing legal invoices for consumers; to improve efficiency of tax collection management for petroleum retail; to create fair business environment for petroleum business stores and protect consumers.

As of January 2017, HCMC has 3 processing parks and 15 industrial parks, a lot of enterprises and dense population, which requires a large volume of petroleum.

However, the state budget revenue from the petroleum business over the past time has not been equivalent to the growth rate. Therefore, the state management on petroleum business, anti-smuggling and anti-trade frauds, anti-tax losses and the protection of consumer interests need to be effectively strengthened in accordance with the legal provisions to create favorable conditions for petroleum stores for sustainable development and fair business and contribute to increasing the state budget revenue in the city.

In order to overcome the shortcomings and exigencies in the state management on petroleum business in the city in general as well as tax collection management for petroleum business in private and to strictly implement the principle “right, full and timely collection” to prevent the losses of state revenues, enhance the sense of compliance with the policies on tax of petroleum stores and ensure the equality on obligation of state budget payment and the interests of consumers, the issue of the Scheme is necessary and urgent in the current time.

484 petrol and oil stations in Hanoi must affix stamps to avoid tax losses VCN- According to the Hanoi Department of Taxation, from 19th May 2017 to 26th May 2017, the ...

To implement this Scheme, HCMC Tax Department has chaired and collaborated with the HCM Department of Industry and Trade (under the Market Management Branch), the Department of Science and Technology (Branch of Standardization, Metrology and Quality), Department of Finance, District People's Committees, HCMC Tax Department will launch anti-counterfeit stamps which will be broken upon peeling with symbols and serial number, imagery of the Tax HCMC Tax Department to seal master gauges on the petroleum pumps of petroleum stores in the city.