The Tax Administration Law 2019 (amended and supplemented) which takes effect from July 1 makes various change to tax admin procedures. One of such changes is Taxpayers are entitled more rights as of the following:

1. Taxpayers will not be subject to admin penalties and late payment interest if they declared and paid taxes in accordance with rulings issued by the tax authorities at the time. This is a positive development as previously the ability to rely on such rulings was less clear;
2. Taxpayers will be allowed to look up all the electronic dossier submitted to tax e-portal in accordance with this Law and the Law on electronic transactions;
3. Taxpayers will be able to use the electronic dossiers in communication with Tax Authority and the other related competent agencies.

The other rights of taxpayers remain unchanged according to the former law, including:  

1. To be supported and guided to pay tax liabilities; provided information and documents to perform tax obligations and benefits;
2. To receive documents related to tax obligations from competent agencies when such agency conducts any tax inspection, examination or audit;
3. To request Tax Authority to explain the detail of tax calculation and assessment; to request expertise of the quantity, quality and categories of export and import goods;
4. To be kept all the information private and confidential, except for the information which must be revealed to competent authorities or published in accordance with tax law;
5. To be entitled to tax incentives and tax refund according to the tax law; to know the deadline for resolution of tax refunds and the non-refundable tax amount as well as the legal base for the non-refundable tax amount.
6. To sign service contracts with tax consultants, custom consultants on carrying out necessary procedures;
7. To receive decisions on tax handling, tax examination and tax inspection records, and request to explain the detail contents of such documents; to reserve opinion in tax examination and tax inspection records; to receive written conclusions of tax examination, tax inspection and decisions on tax handling;
8. To be compensated for damage caused by Tax Authority or Tax Agent according to the provisions of law;
9. To request Tax Authority to certify the fulfillment of tax obligations;
10. To do complaints and lawsuits against administrative decisions and actions related to its lawful rights and interests
11. To denounce law-breaking acts of Tax Agent, organization or individual according to the provisions of the legislation on denunciations.

 The Tax Administration Law 2019 (amended and supplemented) replaces the Tax Administration Law 2006. 

To get into details for specific cases, please feel free to contact us as at:

Unit 602A, Tower A, Handi Resco Office Building

521 Kim Ma Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi

Tel: + 84 24 3974 4181/ 4182

Fax: + 84 24 3974 3090

Email: service@s4b.com.vn

The Hanoi Tax Department has recently issued the official letter No. 44403/CT-TTHT dated 1^st Jun 2020, providing guidelines of CIT and PIT treatment on expenses given to employees during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Summary for the aforesaid official letter is as below:

• Pursuant to the Article 4, Circular No. 96/2015/TT-BTC dated Jun 22, 2015, guiding on the determination of deductible and non-deductible expenses when defining taxable income for CIT calculation;
• Pursuant to the Article 2 Circular No. 111/2013/TT-BTC dated Aug 15, 2013, regulating personal taxable income;
• Pursuant to the Article 63 Circular No. 200/2014/TT-BTC dated Dec 22, 2014, regulating the bonus and welfare fund;

Pursuant to the above regulations, in case during the Covid-19 pandemic, there have expenses incurred for purchasing face masks, hand-washing liquid, protective clothing and expenses related to testing of infectious diseases for employees in prevention of the spread of Covid-19:

• If the expense is given to any individual with specific name, this expense shall be treated as personal taxable income;     
• If the expense does not specify any individual name but is spent for a collective of workers, it shall not be treated as personal taxable income. 

The above are direct expenses for the employees, which are not inclusive in the agreed salary/bonus and complied with the law to improve the living standard of the employee.  

These expenses shall be treated as deductible expenses when defining taxable income for CIT calculation in case they are complied with the regulation as of Item 1, Article 4, Circular No. 96/2015/TT-BTC mentioned above with the condition that the total welfare expenses shall not exceed the actual average 1 month's salary in the tax year. Circular 96/2015/TT guiding for profit tax…

Article 4. Article 6 of Circular No. 78/2014/TT-BTC (amended in Clause 2 Article 6 of Circular No. 119/2014/TT-BTC and Article 1 of Circular No. 151/2014/TT-BTC) is amended as follows:

“Article 6. Deductible and non-deductible expenses when calculating taxable income

1. Except for the non-deductible expenses prescribed in Clause 2 of this Article, every expense is deductible if all of these following conditions are satisfied:

a) The actual expense incurred is related to the enterprise’s business operation.

b) There are sufficient and valid invoices and proof for the expense under the regulations of the law.

c) There is proof of non-cash payment for each invoice for purchase of goods/ services of VND 20 million or over (including VAT).

The proof of non-cash payment must comply with regulations of law on VAT.

To get into details for specific cases, please feel free to contact us as at:

Unit 602A, Tower A, Handi Resco Office Building

521 Kim Ma Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi

+ 84 24 3974 4181/ 4182

+ 84 24 3974 3090

service@s4b.com.vn