Vietnam: Shall the taxpayer's TIN be deactivated if they go missing?

Shall the taxpayer's TIN be deactivated if they go missing?

Based on Clause 2, Article 39 of the Law on Tax Administration 2019, the provisions for deactivating of a TIN are as follows:

Deactivation of a TIN

1. Taxpayers registered with enterprise registration, cooperative registration, or business registration must deactivate of the TIN in the following cases:

a) Cessation of business operations or dissolution, bankruptcy;

b) Revocation of enterprise registration certificate, cooperative registration certificate, or business registration certificate;

c) Division, merger, or consolidation.

2. Taxpayers directly registered with the tax authority must deactivate of the TIN in the following cases:

a) Cessation of business operations with no tax obligations arising for non-business organizations;

b) Revocation of the business registration certificate or equivalent license;

c) Division, merger, or consolidation;

d) The tax authority issues a notice that the taxpayer is not operating at the registered address;

dd) Individuals considered deceased, missing, or lacking civil legal capacity as prescribed by law;

e) Foreign contractors upon contract deactivation;

g) Contractors or investors involved in petroleum contracts upon contract deactivation or full transfer of contractual rights.

3. The principles of deactivating of a TIN are regulated as follows:

a) The TIN must not be used in economic transactions from the date the tax authority announces the deactivation of its validity;

b) The TIN of an organization, once invalidated, cannot be reused, except for cases specified in Article 40 of this Law;

c) When the TIN of a business household or individual is invalidated, the TIN of the business household's representative is not invalidated and can be used for other tax obligations;

d) When businesses, economic organizations, other organizations, and individuals deactivate of their TINs, they must simultaneously invalidate the proxy TINs;

dd) If the taxpayer is the managing unit that deactivates of its TIN, all dependent units must have their TINs invalidated.

4. The dossier for requesting deactivation of TIN validity includes:

a) A document requesting the deactivation of TIN validity;

b) Other related documents.

5. Taxpayers registered with enterprise registration, cooperative registration, or business registration must register for dissolution or cessation of activities at the enterprise registration, cooperative registration, or business registration authority as prescribed by law. Before doing so, taxpayers must register with the tax managing authority to fulfill tax obligations as stipulated in this Law and other relevant laws.

6. Taxpayers directly registered with the tax authority must submit the dossier for deactivation of TIN validity to the direct tax managing authority within 10 working days from the date of the cessation of activities document or business cessation or the date the contract ends.

An individual declared missing is one of the cases where the tax authority deactivates of the TIN.

*Note: This applies to taxpayers directly registered with the tax authority.

Thus, according to the above regulation, if a taxpayer goes missing, the TIN this person registered with the tax authority will be invalidated.

Shall the taxpayer's TIN be deactivated if they go missing? (Image from the Internet)

Is the TIN of the representative of a business household invalidated when the business household ceases its TIN validity?

Based on Clause 3, Article 39 of the Law on Tax Administration 2019, it is stipulated as follows:

The principles for deactivating of a TIN are regulated as follows:

- The TIN must not be used in economic transactions from the date the tax authority announces the deactivation of its validity;

- The TIN of an organization, once invalidated, cannot be reused, except for cases specified in Article 40 of the Law on Tax Administration 2019;

- When the TIN of a business household or individual is invalidated, the TIN of the business household's representative is not invalidated and can be used for other tax obligations;

- When businesses, economic organizations, other organizations, and individuals deactivate of their TINs, they must simultaneously invalidate the proxy TINs;

- If the taxpayer is the managing unit that deactivates of its TIN, all dependent units must have their TINs invalidated.

Thus, according to the above regulation, when the TIN of a business household or individual is invalidated, the TIN of the representative of the business household will not be invalidated and can be used to fulfill other tax obligations of that individual.

When shall the enterprise TIN be deactivated in Vietnam?

According to the regulations in Clause 3, Article 30 of the Law on Tax Administration 2019 as follows:

Taxpayer registration and issuance of TINs

...

3. The issuance of a TIN is regulated as follows:

a) Enterprises, economic organizations, and other organizations are issued a single TIN to use throughout their operations from taxpayer registration until the TIN validity is deactivated. Taxpayers with branches, representative offices, and dependent units fulfilling tax obligations are issued dependent TINs. In cases where enterprises, organizations, branches, representative offices, or dependent units register taxpayer registration via the single-window mechanism along with enterprise registration, cooperative registration, or business registration, the number on the enterprise registration certificate, cooperative registration certificate, or business registration certificate also serves as the TIN;

b) Individuals are issued a single TIN to use throughout their lifetime. Dependents of the individual are granted TINs to provide deductions for the individual's personal income tax. The TIN issued to dependents serves as the individual's TIN when they incur obligations to the state budget;

c) Enterprises, organizations, and individuals with the responsibility to deduct and pay taxes on behalf of others are issued proxy TINs to declare and pay taxes on behalf of the taxpayer;

d) The issued TIN must not be reused for another taxpayer;

dd) The TIN of enterprises, economic organizations, or other organizations remains unchanged after a change in the business type, sale, donation, inheritance;

e) The TIN issued to households, business households, or individual businesses is the TIN issued to the individual representative of the household, business household, or individual business.

Thus, according to the above regulation, an enterprise is issued a single TIN to use throughout its operations from taxpayer registration until the TIN validity is deactivated.