"Mark" enterprises with tax debt

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	The Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department has publicized the list of 35 enterprises with tax debt

The prestige of some products should to be assessed by the amount of tax that the company making these products contributed to the State budget. Photo: Thuy Linh.

Negative impacts on the business environment

According to the latest data of the General Department of Taxation, to 31-10-2016, the total amount of tax debt is 73.161 billion VND. In which tax debt of 90 days and over 90 days (able to collect) is 30,999 billion VND, representing 42.4% of the total amount of tax debt; the penalties and late payment is 27,141 billion VND. Notably, the amount of tax debt which is not likely to be collected was 15,020 billion VND, accounting for 20.5% of the total amount. As of 31-10-2016, the Taxation Departments has been urging to collect debt which reached 33,543 billion VND of switched tax debts in 2015, up by 16% over the same period in 2015, reaching 65% of the collection target in 2016 (if excludes the deferred payment, the revenue will be 92%).

In order to implement the policy of the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Taxation, from the beginning of the year, the Taxation Departments of the provinces and cities were constantly urged to collect tax debt to ensure that the tax debt amount fell sharply which contributes to the assigned tasks of State budget collection. Typically, in 2016, Hanoi Taxation Department has publicly posted 12 sessions including 1,780 enterprises and leased land projects with the amount of tax debt was more than 3,315 billion VND. It is worth mentioning, though their names were public on the mass media, some of them still refuse to pay. Recently, Hanoi Taxation Department published 67 enterprises which still refuse to pay taxes after being publicly identification. With these companies, the Taxation Department has been applying drastic measures to enforce through accounts, bills as prescribed. At the same time, review and synthesize to continually publicly identity these companies to ensure transparency and fairness in the business community and taxpayers.

The General Department of Taxation also asked the local Taxation Departments to immediately notify the list of tax owed on the mass media to boost and coerce. Consequently, recently, along with Hanoi Taxation Department, Taxation Departments of provinces across the country also made public lists of companies with tax debts such as: Hai Phong, Da Nang, Quang Ninh, Hoa Binh, Phu Tho and received remarkable results.

According to economic expert Nguyen Minh Phong, tax stagnation is one of the phenomena taking place in the context of the economy that has difficulty, also many enterprises are expecting the Government to locate, loosen, debt relief in the spirit of helping enterprises. In tax debts, enterprises will find it difficult to have more short-term profits as well as a little "vitality" to sustain life. If this profit can help enterprises to recover, so the economy will receive good impact. However, if this phenomenon occurs on a large scale it will cause harm to the State budget.

"The large tax debt will lead to the stop of budget expenditure. Especially in some local areas with the phenomena of "beyond their means" while the revenue is not guaranteed, thereby leading to budgetary arrears, wage arrears and some projects delayed. Also, this may create a bad precedent, bad movement which lead to the invalidation in the taxes management of the Government. Thus, Taxation has to be one of the highest disciplines of State for enterprises, "said Mr. Phong.

Mr. Chu Dinh Long, representative of Cat Loi Trade Services Ltd said, that the phenomena of some enterprises which do not pay taxes will cause negative effect on healthy competition in the business environment. According to Mr Long, "in the same economic institutions, companies doing well will rise, while companies with poor business strategy, bad output, will intentionally delay paying tax to attempt to profit. This is injustice with genuine enterprises. Tax industry must find the way to help people recognize which are genuine enterprises, responsible for the country and society by paying taxes. The prestige of some product should to be assessed by the amount of tax that the company making these products contributes to the State budget."

Enterprises must have social responsibility

Economic expert Luu Bich Ho said, over the past time, the publishing of a tax arrears list is a remarkable effort to reduce the burden for State budget. Efficacy has been demonstrated when many enterprises contacted with tax authorities and tried to repay the owed taxes. Being named on the "black" list of tax debt will affect the reputation of companies, however, expert Luu Bich Ho said that there are people who do not have high awareness to realize that we have to ostracize enterprises without social responsibility. With tax evasion, enterprises can lower the cost of products and consumers only see the immediate benefits without noticing is that the denying of enterprises to perform the obligations to the State's tax will also affect directly to people's social life and own welfare.

Announcing the tax debt list is a proper move, but not sufficient. Tax industry still urgently needs to take measures to collect the tax debt. Expert Nguyen Minh Phong said that in order to effectively collect tax debt, firstly, tax agencies must organize enterprises "locating". First group with really tough and will immediately stop operations if they pay all taxes so they should have the support of the tax authorities. The second group is the group of companies which do not pay taxes to save and take advantage of profitable opportunities. This group needs urgent collection to increase deterrence. Also there are some enterprises which intentionally evade taxes, thus, the tax authorities should immediately treat by the heavy-handed measures.

"There should be a review and careful analysis of the reasons as well as the ability to collect in order to group and create solutions with different levels of drastic according to the endurance of each enterprise. We can group debts for collect interest, even in some cases, enterprises are allow to negotiate if necessary because thousands of employees should not fall into difficult situations because of taxes. In this case, the tax collection is no longer meaningful", Mr. Phong said.

In December 2016, Hanoi announces 144 enterprises with tax debts VCN- The Hanoi Taxation Department has published the list of 144 enterprises with tax debts, fees and ...

In the opinion of many enterprises, we also should have policies to encourage constructive taxpayers such as lending the amount of tax that have to pay at preferential interest rates; become a priority target; honor to increase the prestige of products ... All of this is to distinguish, and avoid to assess enterprises as the same without causing loss of motivation from inside.