Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry ofFinance (MoF) is working on a draft resolution on handling tax arrears andirrecoverable fines to submit to the National Assembly. 

The MoF proposes to freeze tax arrears/debts.This means it would temporarily cease collection of tax and late payment finesfor those who have terminated their business activities for more than one year,due to actual dissolution of taxpayers (except for cases for splitting, mergeror acquisition), and those who already had their business licence revoked.

Theestimated uncollected tax amount of this particular group is now more than 26.5 trillion VND (1.16 billion USD), making up the majority of total unpaid taxdebt of around 1.18 billion USD.

The ministry also plans torelinquish late tax fees for taxpayers who were struck by natural disasters,fires, accidents or other force majeure circumstances.

Such exemption only applies to latepayments not exceeding the paid value and the suffered damage, which the MoFestimated to be around 2.24 trillion VND (98.6 million USD) in total, as of the endof 2017.

In particular, tax debt exceedingthe 90 days payment window accounted for more than 26 trillion VND (1.14 billion USD); overdue fines were more than 15.6 trillion VND (687.2 million USD); whileirrecoverable tax from deceased or incapacitated people accounted for over 31.4trillion VND (1.38 billion USD), up to 43 percent of total tax debt and 3.2 percent oftotal domestic revenue in 2017.

Meanwhile, the total amount of taxarrears, late payments and fines under the management of customs in 2017 wasmore than 5.4 trillion VND (237.8 million USD) - 70 percent of which is deemedirrecoverable - having increased by 23.5 percent from the end of 2016.

The combined amounts of tax lossunder tax and customs agencies in 2017 amounted to almost half of the nationaltax debts.

Unrecoverable debt levels have beenhigh in recent years, prompting tax authorities to implement drastic measuresto speed up enforcement and recovery of tax debts.

In 2017, the entire tax branchscrambled to collect 44.7 trillion VND (1.96 billion USD) in debt, equal to 89.9percent of outstanding tax debt from 2016.

According to the General Department of Taxation, the tax branchwill implement changes in tax debts management in order to improve Statebudget’s revenues in 2018, by associating tax recovery with administrativereforms for taxpayers across all economic sectors.

In addition, the department will alsoreview debts that are possibly no longer subjected to collection, therebyproposing appropriate remedial measures and reducing tax arrears.-VNA