The online tax refund pilot project would be implemented in 13 municipal taxation departments this year and expanded next year. — Photo thanhnien.vn

HÀ NÔI – The online tax refund pilot project would be implemented in 13 municipal taxation departments this year and expanded next year.

The project is aimed at reducing negative phenomena in the refund of value added tax (VAT).

Nguyễn Đại Trí, deputy head of the General Department of Taxation under the Finance Ministry, released the information at a press briefing to introduce some e-tax services in Hà Nội last Friday.

Trí added that the 13 departments are Hà Nội, HCM City, Hải Phòng, and Đồng Nai, in addition to Bình Dương, Đà Nẵng, Cần Thơ, and Quảng Ninh. The other departments are Kon Tum, Khánh Hòa, Vĩnh Phúc, and Bình Thuận, in addition to Thái Nguyên.

“The localities have a large number of tax refund businesses in the country as well as numerous exporters that would be suitable for the pilot implementation of online tax refunds,” he said.

He affirmed that the refund should be strictly and carefully reviewed as it uses the State budget.

Lê Thị Duyên Hải, deputy director of the Department for Tax Declaration and Accounting, said taxpayers would fill the available forms on the sector’s portal instead of directly submitting their documents. The tax departments would receive and handle documents then promulgating tax refund decisions. The decisions would be transferred into e-paper to send to taxpayers through the portal.

“The process would be published for everyone’s convenience. Tax payers could access the portal at any time to see their application status to supplement necessary documents,” Hải said, adding that the service would surely reduce time and money for both taxpayers and tax departments.

The upcoming online tax refund would not be complicated for people as they have been using online tax system for declarations and payments, she added.

The General Department of Taxation submitted the application roadmap of online tax refunds to the Finance Ministry for approval. The pilot implementation would be launched in the beginning of next month if the proposal is approved.

The current regulations stipulate that the deadline for issuing a tax refund decision is less than six working days for applications which are given refund before checks and 40 days for those given refund after checks from the time documents are received from tax payers.

In recent years, the General Department of Taxation has focused on simplifying administrative procedures and reducing documents by applying e-paper.

It has also applied Information Technology to improve transparency in tax management.

In addition, the implementation of an e-invoice is continuing under Decision No 1134/QĐ-BTC promulgated by the Finance Ministry.

There are 225 businesses in Hà Nội and HCM City registered with the tax department to issue certified e-invoices since the pilot implementation on September 11 2015. – VNS