“Lucky invoice” Program: Encouraging consumers to get used to civilized consumption

Deputy Director General of Taxation Dang Ngoc Minh

How did the General Department of Taxation come up with the idea for the “Lucky invoice” Program?

In fact, every year, the Tax sector manages tax refunds of VND140,000 billion but the risk of evading tax refund for traditional invoices persists. Through management, many cases of fraud of tax invoices were detected by the Tax sector. The Law on Tax Administration regulating many provisions on electronic invoices (e-invoices) was an important step in tax management and enhanced the responsibility of the tax authority in the management and use of e-invoice data.

Accordingly, in the Law on Tax Administration, the General Department of Taxation researched a project on launching the “Lucky invoice” Program for e-invoices with the purpose of encouraging consumers to take invoices when purchasing goods as well as making it a practice of civilized consumption, purchasing goods must have an invoice and vouchers, thereby protecting consumer’s rights.

To implement the project, it required many factors in which the responsibility of the State was very huge in investing in technical infrastructure to perform e-invoices; disseminating and communicating to the enterprises about the meaning of e-invoices which was focusing on strengthening administration, reducing costs, and creating a premise for digital transformation of enterprises.

However, a majority of consumers, especially individual consumers, did not usually make cost accounting so they did not have a habit of taking and saving invoices. Therefore, through the “Lucky invoice” program, the State created a mechanism to encourage consumers to get used to civilized consumption, that is purchasing goods and getting invoices.

It would bring benefits to consumers when there was a chance of win prizes worth tens of millions of VND.

Through learning from international practices, especially in countries and territories such as Taiwan, South Korea, which had successfully launched lucky draw programs for invoices, the General Department of Taxation launched this program complying with the regulations in the Law on Tax Administration, thereby, it both brings benefits to consumers and supervises the accounting of enterprise’s revenue as well as contributing to enhancing the modernization and digitalization of tax management.

Furthermore, this was an important part of this program that aimed to gather big data of e-invoices and transfer it to the tax authority for use in tax management. The main target of e-invoices was anti-fraud.

At the same time, to promote the effectiveness of e-invoices, the General Department of Taxation needed to have the supervision of a third party that was the consumers, especially retailers. The implementation of the "Lucky invoices" program would be an important factor to encourage consumers to exercise the right to monitor the tax obligations of businesses and sellers.

Could you please share more clearly the conditions for participating in the "Lucky Invoice" program?

Currently, there are two types of e-invoices, invoices without a code and with a code of the tax authority. The “Lucky invoice” program applies only for e-invoices with a code of the tax authority. This was a basic request to strengthen management and increase the responsibility of the tax authority in the management and use of e-invoice data. At the same time, it aimed to encourage consumers after paying for goods or services, which would require sellers to issue invoices for the purchased goods and services.

The invoices eligible to participate in the “Lucky invoice” program must have the identification of both the seller and the buyer. Thereby, encouraging buyers to provide their identification. Each invoice only participates in the lucky draw once, excluding invoices that were canceled, adjusted, or replaced.

The winning invoices were made based on the principle of random selection by electronic method on the e-invoice system of the tax authority. It would ensure transparency and close supervision by the Supervisory Council.

On April 15, 2022, Director General of Taxation Cao Anh Tuan signed and promulgated Decision No. 527 / QD-TCT on the establishment of a Supervisory Council for the “Lucky invoices” program. Accordingly, the members of the Supervisory Council include: Deputy Director General of Taxation in charge of Chairman of the Supervisory Council; the members included representatives of Vietnam Small and Medium Enterprises Association; Inspectorate of the Ministry of Finance; Internal Audit Department of the General Department of Taxation and a number of functional units of the General Department of Taxation.

The Supervisory Council was responsible for supervising the implementation of the program to ensure publicity, and transparency, and to protect the right to participate in the program of buyers purchasing goods and services that had e-invoices with the code of tax authority in accordance with current regulation.

How will the award structure be regulated to encourage organizations and individuals to participate and use e-invoices, sir?

The "Lucky invoice" program would be piloted in two rounds of the lucky draw to select winners held by the General Department of Taxation. The first round was scheduled to be held on April 18, 2022 and would be applied to all e-invoices with tax authority codes that have been issued by enterprises and business establishments from November 2021 to December 2021. Similarly, the second round would be held on April 21, 2022 for e-invoices issued from January 1, 2022 to March 31, 2022.

The prize structure was made following the criteria: three lucky invoices will be selected for each round. The value of each prize was up to VND50 million for a lucky invoice. The winner of the "Lucky Invoice" prize of the 1st and 2nd rounds would be awarded the prizes directly by the General Department of Taxation at the headquarters.

With such an award structure, the General Department of Taxation hoped to create attraction for consumers in using e-invoices when buying and selling goods and services. After the pilot period (period 1 and period 2), the General Department of Taxation would review the organization and adjust the frequency of the draw, expanding the prize structure and appropriate value of the prizes in order to attract more consumers' attention to e-invoices.

Accordingly, after having the results of the draw for "Lucky invoices", the General Department of Taxation would grant the authority to the local tax departments to award the prize directly in the provinces and cities where winners reside.

Thank you!