Công văn 1766/TCT-CS

OFFICIAL LETTER

ON APPENDING SEALS ON INVOICES

To: Provincial/municipal Tax Departments

The General Department of Taxation has recently received official letters from some provincial/municipal Tax Departments and enterprises proposing for acceptance of using the pre-printing of specimen seals on invoices instead of appending seals. Concerning this matter, the General Department of Taxation gives the following opinions:

Clause 4, Article 19 of the Accounting Law stipulates: “Accounting documents must be made adequately in the prescribed number of copies. If an economic and financial operation requires many copies of accounting documents, the contents of those copies must be identical. For accounting documents which are made by accounting units defined at Points a throu d, Clause 1, Article 2 of this Law to conduct transactions with outside organizations or individuals, the copies to be handed over to outsiders must be appended with seals of the issuing units.”

The Government’s Decree No. 58/2001/ND-CP of August 24, 2001, on seal management and use, does not allow the pre-printing of specimen seals instead of appending seals.

Pursuant to the above provisions, the enterprises’ proposal to use pre-print specimen seals on self-printed invoices instead of appending seals on invoices’ copies handed over to customers runs counter to the seal management and use regulations and the Accounting Law. Specimen seals pre-printed on invoices by the enterprises are merely logos or symbols for advertising or information on the enterprises, which cannot substitute for the seals appended on invoices’ copies handed over to customers under legal regulations.

Enterprises using self-printed invoices shall comply with the following regulations:

- If the invoice has an item “signature of the unit’s head”, the unit’s head shall sign the invoice and append a seal on it according to regulations.

- In case the company authorizes a subordinate to sign the invoice, such subordinate shall sign his/her name and append the company’s seal on it as authorized; or append the seal at the top of the invoice.

- In case the invoice should be signed only by the purchaser and seller as authorized by the unit head (without the item “signature of the unit’s head”), a seal may not be appended.

Enterprises shall, based on their business requirements, design and register their specimen invoices with tax agencies and take accountability for the printing, issuance and use of their invoices according to regulations.

The General Department of Taxation notifies the above opinions to provincial/municipal Tax Departments for information and guidance to enterprises for compliance. Problems arising in the course of implementation should be reported to the General Department of Taxation for timely settlement.