Korean enterprises want to understand clearly tax and customs policies

	Ministry of Finance had a dialogue with Korean enterprises: Willing to listen and solve problems
	Customs always accompanies with South Korean enterprises
	HCM City Customs guided and answered many questions from Korean enterprises

The conference scene. Photo: T.Linh

Deputy Minister of Finance Vu Thi Mai and Mr. Kim Do Hyon, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Korea to Vietnam co-chaired the meeting. Attending the meeting were Deputy General Director of Taxation Cao Anh Tuan; Deputy Director General of Customs Mai Xuan Thanh, and representatives of departments under the Ministry of Finance, General Department of Taxation and General Department of Customs.

Strong reform of tax and customs

Speaking at the conference, the Deputy Minister of Finance Vu Thi Mai emphasized that the Government of Vietnam always attached great importance to administrative reform, including reform of tax and customs procedures to create an increasingly favourable business environment for enterprises and facilitate the implementation of tax obligations with the state budget. In particular, Korean FDI enterprises play an important part in Vietnam’s economy and uses over 70,000 employees, and contributed about 30% of Vietnam’s total export value.

Over the past time, the Ministry of Finance also issued circulars on tax and customs and assigned the General Department of Taxation and the General Department of Customs to review and develop specific action plans to reduce administrative procedures for the time involved for tax payment and customs declaration for taxpayers and customs declarants, and to strongly apply IT to the tax and customs management.

However, in the process of applying policies into practice, there are difficulties and obstacles. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance is willing to listen to comments from enterprises to continue improving the policy in order for solving difficulties to enable boosting production and business activities of Korean enterprises, thus contributing to stepping up the investment environment in Vietnam.

Cao Anh Tuan, Deputy Director General of the Taxation said that up to now, the Ministry of Finance held 11 conferences not only to disseminate new policies but also to listen and solve problems for enterprises. Thus, helping management agencies improve their management policies.

At the conference, Deputy Director General of Customs Mai Xuan Thanh, shared that Customs has electronized many procedures, helping to reduce Customs administrative procedures, shorten customs clearance time and reduce the direct contact between customs officers and enterprises to restrict negative acts. At the same time, Customs is actively coordinating with ministries and sectors to complete the legal basis to implement the National Single Window mechanism to reduce customs clearance time and costs for enterprises in line with the development of international trade.

At the conference, there were 9 questions on tax and customs policies such as import duty, export duty; customs procedures, C/O, tax incentives, tax policies for enterprises enjoying tax incentives, etc. Some enterprises proposed to the Ministry of Finance for reform in the direction that enterprises which are exempted from import duty on raw materials according to Article 12 of Decree 134/2016. / NĐ-CP, are also exempted from import duty when hiring a third party for processing.

Representatives from the General Department of Customs said that pursuant to Clause 7 Article 16 of the Law on Import and Export Duties; and Clause 1, Article 12 of Decree No. 134/2016 / ND-CP, organizations and individuals, that import goods for export production but hire a third party to process goods and then receive processed products for further processing or receive finished products for export, are not eligible for enjoying tax exemption according to Decree No. 134/2016/ND-CP. Therefore, those enterprises are not exempted from import duty on imported goods which are processed by a third party.

Representatives from the General Department of Customs noted the proposals by enterprises and will review to amend Decree 134/2016 / ND-CP.

A number of questions related to norms and units of settlement for domestic sales of export processing enterprises (EPE); the registration of bar codes for products, which are not permitted to circulate in Vietnam and exported to foreign countries; tax incentives for expanded investment have been specifically answered by representatives from the General Department of Customs and the General Department of Taxation.

Desire to study policies of enterprises

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Korea to Vietnam said that the trading scale between South Korea and Vietnam has been growing rapidly over the years and has been agreed by leaders of the two countries to reach a target of US $ 100 billion by 2020. This is considered as a top concern by South Korean enterprises. Especially in the globalization trend, the business environment and tax and customs policies are always a matter of concern for investors. For many years South Korea has maintained its position as the No.1 investor in Vietnam and the above results show the increasingly closer economic cooperation. However, the more the number of South Korean investors there are, the more the difficulties due to the lack of knowledge of tax and customs policies are.

"Thus, I think that the 11th dialogue conference on tax and customs with South Korean enterprises expressed the goodwill of Vietnam’s Government to South Korean enterprises. At the same time, the conference has significantly contributed to the development of the relationship of the two countries. I hope that through this conference, South Korean enterprises will better understand the regulations and policies on tax and customs of Vietnam and solve the difficulties and problems related to these two fields." Kim Do Hyon emphasized.

Closing the conference, Mrs. Vu Thi Mai noted that administrative procedures, tax and customs policies are always the top concern of enterprises. This conference expresses the attention and active support of the Ministry of Finance, General Department of Taxation, and General Department of Customs, which is considered as an important part in bringing policies into reality.

Binh Duong Customs explains Circular 39 for Korean enterprises

Deputy Minister Vu Thi Mai stressed that the conference is the chance for enterprises to listen and synthesize to understand more clearly new policies on tax and customs to better serve their operation in Vietnam. If there are still unclear contents, enterprises can directly ask or send questions via their Embassy, Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), or the Korea Chamber of Business in Vietnam (Korcham) to the Tax Policy Department under the Ministry of Finance, General Department of Taxation or General Department of Customs for timely response.