Công văn 3340/TCT-CS

To: Department of Taxation of Bac Ninh Province.

In reply to the Official Dispatch No. 629/CT-KTT dated April 25, 2014 from Department of Taxation of Bac Ninh Province on request for guidance on VAT of enterprises before being converted to export processing enterprises, the General Department of Taxation gives some opinions as follows:

Pursuant to Point 20 Article 4 of Circular No. 219/2013/TT-BTC dated December 31, 2013 of the Ministry of Finance on guidelines for goods and services not subject to VAT: “Free trade zones include: export-processing zones, export processing enterprises, tax-suspension warehouses, bonded warehouses, special economic zones, commercial - industrial zones, and other economic zones established and provided with similar tax incentives as free trade zones according to Decisions of the Prime Minister. The transactions between a free trade zone and an external party are considered export/import”.

Pursuant to Clause 1 and Clause 2 Article 14 of Circular No. 219/2013/TT-BTC on credit of VAT:

 “Input VAT on goods and services serving the manufacture or sale of goods/services subject to VAT shall be deducted in full, including non-refundable input VAT on damaged goods”.

“When goods and services (including fixed assets) are purchased to serve the manufacture or sale of both the goods/services that are subject to VAT and goods/services that are not subject to VAT, only VAT on the goods and services serving the manufacture or sale of the goods/services subject to VAT shall be deducted”.

As for guidelines for how to deal with excess input VAT credits before enterprises are converted to export processing enterprises, on December 22, 2009, the Ministry of Finance sent an Official Dispatch No. 17924/BTC-TCT to Departments of Taxation on specific guidelines.

As stated by Department of Taxation of Bac Ninh Province, SEHYUN VINA Co., Ltd is a newly-corporated company which has been in the course of investment and has not manufactured products. It incurred a certain amount of input VAT, declared from December 2013 to March 2014. Then, on April 8, 2014, SEHYUN VINA Co., Ltd was converted to an export processing enterprise (an export processing enterprise is not required to declare VAT).

According to the afore-mentioned guidelines, General Department of Taxation concurs with the proposal in Official Dispatch No. 629/CT-KTT dated April 25, 2014 of Department of Taxation of Bac Ninh Province on implementation of Official Dispatch No. 17924/BTC-TCT dated December 22, 2009 of the Ministry of Finance guiding export processing enterprises to deal with procurement of fixed assets without input VAT. Therefore, after SEHYUN VINA Co., Ltd becomes the export processing enterprise, it shall be eligible for a refund of creditable input VAT in the pre-conversion period.