The enterprises announced that they issued and used more than 600 million e-invoices, which had no tax authority code, last year, the department reported.Besides, the number of enterprises, which announced to use e-invoice with tax authority code, is 241 with more than 2.7 million e-invoices issued last year.
Firms issued and used 600 million e-invoices last year
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From now to the deadline, the tax industry will continue to use paper invoices in parallel with e-invoices.
Earlier, the finance ministry proposed a plan to make e-invoices compulsory for all enterprises from January this year. However, many enterprises said that they find it hard to meet the proposed deadline though admitting the huge benefits of e-invoices.
According to the GDT, the use of e-invoices helped save time and cost for businesses while limiting billing fraud and simplifying administrative procedures.
The general department estimated that with some 2.5 billion invoices used in a year, firms could save VND1 trillion (US$43.9 million) if they switched from paper bills to e-invoices.
Nguyen Dai Tri, GDT deputy director, said that e-invoices would bring convenience for both tax agencies and tax payers. They could help businesses save time and money and better manage their invoices. Similarly, tax agencies would have a database for inspections and discovering violations in issuing invoices.
Tran Thi Lan Anh, VCCI’s general secretary, said that the application of information and technology (IT) in business, specifically e-invoice, is a common trend among advanced economies in the world.
The improving IT infrastructure has created favorable conditions for the use of e-invoices, she said, adding that Vietnamese firms need to promote the application of new technology solutions to enhance management and competitiveness.
There are more than 500,000 firms in Vietnam. Thus, the number of firms using e-invoices is still modest.
Besides the use of e-invoice, GDT has also sped up reforms and application of information technology to make its management more effectively.
According to the GDT latest report, up to 96.21 per cent of the country’s firms has so far registered to pay tax online. Tax revenue collected through the electronic service reached over VND120.6 trillion ($5.31 billion) with 976,000 transactions in the first three months of this year.
During the period, the number of firms using the electronic tax declaration services was more than 648,000 with some 48 million applications while more than 2,800 firms also used electronic tax refund services to get a total refunds of VND13 trillion.
According to Bui Van Nam, GDT General Director, tax revenue collected through the electronic service reached over VND520 trillion ($22.9 billion) last year, accounting for over 51 percent of the country’s total tax revenue.
Last year also witnessed dramatic changes in tax administrative reform. Electronic tax declaration systems were implemented in 63 provinces and cities’ tax offices, with nearly 624,000 tax-paying accounts registered in the system.
GDT has so far also applied the electronic tax refund service to ease taxpayers at all 63 cities and provinces nationwide.
The IT application has also helped the tax sector simplify its organization. The sector plans to restructure its subsidiaries this year, aimed to trim down at least 50 percent of the current tax agencies from now to 2020.
