VINACHEM

A recent survey conducted by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) on tax procedure reform and business satisfaction showed that tax inspections were down a slight 0.58 points compared with the 2016 figure.

VCCI and the General Department of Taxation jointly conducted the survey and released the results on November 18, reported VnEconomy news site.

Aside from tax inspections, the adoption of tax procedures saw a slight decline of 0.14 points compared with 2016.

Although these two indexes scored lower than those from three years ago, they still have some upsides, VCCI noted in a statement.

This year’s survey listed nine tax obligations for enterprises to evaluate how easy they are to fulfill. They comprise value added tax, corporate income tax, personal income tax, land use tax, environmental protection tax, natural resources tax, special consumption tax, and export and import duties.

In general, paying value added tax, and corporate and personal income taxes was easy for 95%, 93% and 87% of respondents, respectively.

Besides this, up to 98% of firms found it easy to conduct tax payment procedures, while purchasing, registering for and reporting the use of tax invoices was convenient for 94% of respondents.

When it comes to tax inspections, the survey showed that tax agencies have adopted multiple measures to improve the quality of the inspections. An average 43% of firms welcomed tax inspectors this year. However, similar to findings in previous years, the bigger the businesses are, the more inspections they face.

Also, the application of procedures during inspections received positive feedback.

In particular, 94% of firms said that the tax inspections were carried out as scheduled. Also, 93% of businesses could explain uncleared issues to tax inspectors before the inspection results were announced.

Further, tax officials showed appropriate attitudes toward 90% of firms during inspections, while 89% stated that tax inspections did not disrupt their normal operations.

Overall, the survey showed that the reform efforts of the Finance Ministry and the General Department of Taxation over the past five years have brought about many practical benefits, saved time and costs for businesses, as well as received recognition from the enterprise community.

The business satisfaction level was 7.79 points in 2019. As such, some 78% of surveyed firms indicated their satisfaction with tax administrative reforms, up 3% versus the 2016 figure. - SGT -