Hanoi (VNA) - Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung has requested anurgent investigation into an alleged bribery of Vietnamese officialsby Tenma Vietnam - a subsidiary of Japan’s plastic product maker TenmaCorporation.

Accordingly, he assigned the ministry’s Inspectorate to immediately set up a team toinspect the Tax Department and the Customs Department of the northern provinceof Bac Ninh, where Tenma Vietnam is located.

The Director-General of VietnamTaxation and the Director-General of the Vietnam Customs were requested toreport on recent allegations on Japanese media about bribes paidby Tenma Vietnam Company to the tune of 25 million JPY (232,000 USD) toavoid paying corporate and value-added taxes. The report must be sent tothe Ministry of Finance before May 26.

Tenma Vietnam was established in 2007 in Bac Ninh province with charter capitalof 35 million USD, fully contributed by the parent corporation in Japan. Thecompany specialises in manufacturing and trading of plastic moulding componentsand plastic moulds. Tenma Corporation is a Japanese company that was founded in1949. According to its annual stock report, Tenma's sales in 2018 were 84.8billion JPY with 7,557 employees worldwide.

The case of Tenma Vietnam cameinto the spotlight when Japanese media including AsahiShimbun newspaper reported that the Vietnamese subsidiary gave abribe of 25 million JPY (232,000 USD) to Vietnamese customs officials.

According to Asahi Shimbun, theTokyo-based Tenma Corporation confessed the case to the Tokyo DistrictProsecutor. Tenma Corporation reportedly took the initiative to set up athird-party committee to investigate the violation. Bribing foreign governmentsis a prohibited practice in Japan.

According to a report from thecommittee, in June 2017, Tenma Vietnam in Bac Ninh received a notice of thecollection of value-added tax with imported raw materials up to about 400billion VND (17.8 million USD). Leaders of Tenma Vietnam proposed to the headoffice about bribing the local customs authorities for the exemption of thesetaxes.

Receiving approval from the president of the parent company Kento Fujino,Tenma Vietnam reportedly paid 2 billion VND (88,900 USD) in cash to the localCustoms Department's investigating leader, according to the report.

In addition, a local tax audit in August last year found some of Tenma Vietnam’srevenues were not eligible for tax incentives. Therefore, local authoritiesreportedly asked the company to pay an additional 17.8 billion VND of corporatetax. Tenma Vietnam was alleged to have spent 3 billion VND to reduce this feeto about 567 million VND (25,200 USD) including fines.

Meanwhile, Ngo Xuan Tong, Director of the Bac Ninh Tax Department, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that theallegation that Bac Ninh tax officials received money from Tenma Vietnam was aunilateral report from Japanese media.

“The company's chief accountant confirmed that there was no such expense,” hesaid.

Tong said the provincial Tax Department had reviewed all related records, and subsequently,the provincial People's Committee also assigned the Bac Ninh Police Departmentto investigate and clarify the case./.