Vietnam: The fine which is 3 times as much as the amount of evaded tax shall be imposed for tax evasion

According to Clause 5 Article 17 of the Decree No. 125/2020/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government, the fine which is 3 times as much as the amount of evaded tax shall be imposed on any taxpayer committing one of the following violations under at least three aggravating circumstances:

- Failing to submit tax registration applications;

- Failing to keep accounting entries of amounts collected from the determination of taxes payable, any deficiency in taxes amounts due to non-declaration or false declaration or any increase in amounts of tax refund, exemption or reduction;

- Failing to issue invoices for sale of goods or provision of services, except the cases where the taxpayer has recorded taxes on sold goods or supplied services in the corresponding tax term; issuing invoices for sale of goods or provision of services in which the invoiced items and amounts based on which tax declaration is made are less than those that actually exist if this act is discovered after the deadline for submission of tax returns;

- Using illegal invoices; illegally using invoices for declaring taxes with the intention of reducing taxes payable or increasing amounts of tax refund, exemption or reduction;

- Using goods not subject to taxes, or those qualified for tax exemption or consideration of tax exemption;

- The violating taxpayer performs business activities during the period of business closure or temporary suspension without informing tax authorities.

Previously, a fine of 3 times calculated on the amount of tax evaded is applied only in case of violation from the second time and there are 2 or more aggravating circumstances or the third violation under aggravating circumstances or the fourth violation or later instead of applying to the case of the first violation.

View more details at the Decree No. 125/2020/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government, effective from December 05, 2020.

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