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Draft Law on Tax Administration has approached international practices

According to the Ministry of Finance, the Law on Tax Administration took effect on 1st January 2017 and was amended and supplemented three times. After 10 years of implementation, the Law on Tax Administration achieved important results but showed limitations and inadequacies. In particular, the Ministry of Finance emphasized that international economic integration required further strengthening and improving the legal basis as well as enhancing international cooperation and tax administration.

In recent years, Vietnam has signed many international treaties, multilateral and bilateral agreements. To this date, Vietnam has signed Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements with 76 countries and territories. However, many points stipulated in the Law on Tax Administration are no longer appropriate with international standards on tax administration for multilateral Tax Agreement and appropriate points have been included in the Law.

In addition, the Law has not created sufficient legal conditions for the modernization of tax administration, and first of all is the wide implementation and dissemination of e-tax administration procedures in the context of strong development of e-commerce and the increasing popularity of non-cash payment and the strong movement toward the fourth industrial revolution.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the administrative reform in state management activities including reform of tax administration procedures has been carried out and achieved positive results. The reform of tax administration procedures over the past time has brought positive effects to the economy, contributed to reducing time and costs, increasing the competitiveness of enterprises, and attracting foreign investors to Vietnam. These results must be strengthened and developed by law. Therefore, the revised Tax Administration Law aims to address this important objective.

With the revised draft Law on Tax Administration, the amendments and supplementations have ensured the objectives: completing provision on tax administration in the direction of covering all revenues, expanding the collection establishments; raising the capacity and efficiency of tax administration activity to prevent and combat tax evasion, revenue losses and tax debts; strengthening the coordination among State agencies and organizations and individuals related to Tax Agency in the implementation of tax law and tax administration.

The contents and provisions will be renovated towards increasing the regulations to reform administration procedures, reform tax administration procedures in a simple, clear, open, convenient and uniform manner; E-tax administration, tax administration in a risk-based manner and protection of taxpayers' interests in order to facilitate taxpayers to abide by tax law and voluntarily pay tax to the state budget in a timely fashion.

A representative from the General Department of Taxation affirmed that the amendments and supplements to the above provisions aimed to contribute to the international integration strategy set by the Party and the State and comply with international standards on tax and prepare legal basis for integration in the coming period.

The revised Law on Tax Administration will overcome difficulties arising in the implementation of Law on Tax Administration over the past time and remove inadequacies and overlaps in the legal system of tax administration and ensure the consistency with relevant laws; and ensure the feasibility, transparency and convenience for implementing organizations.

Source: Customs News