Công văn 304TCT/DNK

To: Provincial/municipal Tax Departments

Recently, through overseeing and directing the implementation of Joint Circular No. 94/2003/TTLT/BTC-BTM-BCA of October 8, 2003 guiding the regime of invoices and vouchers for goods circulated on market, the General Department of Taxation has realized that many violations on invoices and vouchers have been detected through inspection by functional branches, which, however, due to complicated verification and handling thereof, have been transferred to tax offices for handling because of their complexity. Tax offices have received such dossiers but in many cases had insufficient grounds to handle them since they needed further investigation or verification, thus leading to prolonged handling, which caused troubles to goods carriers on the one hand and petitions on the other hand. In some cases, tax officers have taken advantage of this to take bribes. Concerning this matter, the General Department of Taxation requests the provincial/municipal Tax Departments to immediately perform the following tasks:

1. According to Point 1b, Section IV of Joint Circular No. 94/2003/TTLT/BTC-BTM-BCA of October 8, 2003 of the Finance Ministry, the Trade Ministry and the Public Security Ministry, the handling of import goods circulated on market in violation of the invoice and voucher regime shall fall under the competence of the control bodies, which detect them. The General Department of Taxation, therefore, request the provincial/municipal Tax Departments to stop receiving dossiers for handling goods in violation from other functional branches. Where the latter ask for tax offices’ opinions on forms of handling of violations, the tax offices shall do so if they send their written requests. When giving their opinions, tax offices must base themselves on documents and dossiers supplied by detection and inspection bodies to give written replies within the prescribed time limit.

With regard to home-made goods in violation of the invoice and voucher regime detected by other functional branches, when receiving violation dossiers from such branches, tax offices must examine the dossiers and accept them only when they have sufficient grounds. The receipt of dossiers must be evidenced by a hand-over record, which clearly states types of enclosed dossiers and vouchers. Based on the dossiers transferred by detection and inspection bodies, tax offices shall immediately issue handling decisions and notify such bodies thereof in writing. In case of insufficient grounds for handling or necessity to further verification, tax offices shall request detection and inspection bodies to supply more documents or conduct more verification. If the dossier- transferring bodies fail to do so, tax offices shall immediately reply that they have not enough grounds for handling and shall not accept the dossiers so that the goods-seizing bodies shall handle with goods carriers. While examining dossiers, tax offices must not receive any additional documents from any subjects other than the inspection and detection bodies.

2. In order to reach agreement with other branches on coordination in handling of violations on invoices and vouchers for goods circulated on market, every tax department is requested to assign one investigation or professional division (for Tax Departments) or team (for District Tax Departments) to receive dossiers from other branches and propose forms of violation handling to tax office leadership.

3. To encourage the circulation of goods, contributing to stabilizing prices, boosting production and business and accelerating economic growth, Tax Departments and District Tax Departments must not set up teams or groups or assign their officers to control en route goods or coordinate, without permission, with other branches in controlling those goods. Tax offices shall assign their officers to join other branches only when so requested by heads of such branches.

4. To enhance measures to propagate and guide policies, inspect the observance of policies by tax offices and officers, promptly detect and discipline those officers who commit violations.

The provincial/municipal Tax Departments are requested to direct their attached units and sub-departments to strictly implement the above contents.