06 regulations on taxes and fees to take effect in mid-August

1. New guideline for refund of value added tax (VAT)

Pursuant to the Circular No. 99/2016/TT-BTC (in effect as of August 13, 2016), the time limit for processing of VAT refund claims of entities eligible for receiving pre-inspected tax refund is defined as follows:

- If the application for tax refund does not match the regulated entities and conditions for tax refund or provides insufficient data, the tax authority shall send a written notice to the tax payer in 03 working days upon receiving the entire application.

If providing insufficient data, the tax payer shall be held responsible for explaining and supplementing information and documents in 10 working days upon receiving the written notice of the tax authority. If no reply is made within the said time limit, the tax authority shall put the tax refund application under inspection prior to refund.

- If conditions for tax refund are met, the tax authority shall issue a decision to refund tax in at most 06 working days upon receiving the entire application for tax refund.

- The provincial branch of the State Treasury shall disburse the tax refund to the tax payer in at most 03 working days upon the former’s receipt of the tax authority’s order of return of contributions to the state budget or order of refund by deduction of contributions to the state budget.

Circular No. 94/2010/TT-BTC dated June 30, 2010, Decision No. 2404/QD-BTC dated September 27. 2012 and Circular No. 150/2013/TT-BTC dated October 29, 2013 shall lose force when Circular No. 99/2016/TT-BTC takes effect.

2. Disclosure of registered taxpayer information

Pursuant to the Circular No. 95/2016/TT-BTC (in effect as of August 12, 2016), tax authorities shall publish the registered information of tax payers on the website of the General Department of Taxation in these events:

- Tax payers that have shut down and completed formalities to terminate their taxpayer identification numbers (TIN) (Status 01).

- Tax payers that have shut down but have not completed formalities to terminate their TINs (Status 03).

- Tax payers having not operated at the registered addresses that are announced via the Notice No. 16/TN-DKT enclosed to the Circular (Status 06).

- Taxpayers having re-obtained their TINs via Notice No. 19/TB-ĐKT enclosed to this Circular.

The information disclosed includes: Name, taxpayer identification number, status, specific reasons of the TIN status given to the taxpayer, date of amendments.

Tax authorities shall publish the registered taxpayer information no later than the working day following the date that the registered taxpayer information is updated on the Tax Registration System.

3. Amendment to the appraisal fee on proposals on discharging wastewaters into water sources

Circular No. 94/2016/TT-BTC adds the fee for appraisal of proposals and reports on discharging less than 5,000 m3 of wastewaters per full day into water sources and on aquaculture. As follows:

- The fee of VND 8,500,000 per application shall be imposed for appraisal of proposals and reports on discharging 3,000 to less than 5,000 m3 per full day.

- The fee of VND 8,400,000 to VND 16,000,000 per application shall be imposed for appraisal of proposals and reports on effluent discharge in relation to aquaculture.

Circular No. 94/2016/TT-BTC shall come into force as of August 11, 2016.

4. Circular 96/2016/TT-BTC, in effect as of August 15, 2016, on guidelines for documents and formalities for foreign specialists' exemption from personal income tax during their engagement in aid campaigns and projects of foreign non-governmental organizations in Vietnam.

5. Circular No. 97/2016/TT-BTC, in effect as of August 15, 2016, on guidelines for documents and formalities for Vietnamese individuals‘ exemption from personal income tax during their employment in Vietnam-based representative offices of international organizations under the United Nations.

6. Circular No. 98/2016/TT-BTC, in effect as of August 13, 2016, on the addition of Artemia cysts into the list of imports eligible for preferential rates of import duty under Chapter 98 of the Preferential import tariff enclosed to the Circular No. 182/2015/TT-BTC dated November 16, 2015.