Where is the place to declare environmental safety fee for iron ore mining in Vietnam?

Where is the place to declare environmental safety fee for iron ore mining in Vietnam?

Pursuant to Clause 1, Article 11 of Decree 126/2020/ND-CP which stipulates the location for submitting tax declaration dossiers as follows:

Location for Submitting Tax Declaration Dossiers

Taxpayers shall follow the regulations on the location for submitting tax declaration dossiers as specified in Clause 1, Clause 2, and Clause 3 of Article 45 of the Law on Tax Administration and the following regulations:

1. The location for submitting tax declaration dossiers for taxpayers with multiple business activities across different provincial areas as per point a, point b of Clause 4, Article 45 of the Law on Tax Administration is the tax authority where there is a business activity outside the province or city where the main headquarters is located for the following cases:

a) Declaration of VAT for investment projects as stipulated at point d, Clause 2, Article 7 of this Decree, at the place where the investment project is located.

b) Declaration of VAT for real estate transfer activities of infrastructure investment projects, houses for transfer (including cases where advance payments from customers are received in installments) at the place where the real estate transfer activity occurs.

c) Declaration of VAT at the location of the power production plant.

d) Declaration of special consumption tax at the production or processing site of goods subject to special consumption tax or at the location where services subject to special consumption tax are provided (excluding lottery business activities).

In case taxpayers directly import goods subject to special consumption tax and then sell domestically, they must declare special consumption tax with the tax authority directly managing the area where the taxpayer’s headquarters is located.

dd) Declaration of environmental protection tax at the place of production of goods subject to environmental protection tax, excluding the environmental protection tax for petroleum business activities as stipulated at point a, Clause 4 of this Article.

e) Declaration of environmental protection tax at the place of coal production and business establishment (including internal consumption), excluding the environmental protection tax stipulated at point b, Clause 4 of this Article.

g) Declaration of resource tax (excluding resource tax for hydropower production activities where the hydropower reservoir of the power plant is common across provincial areas; crude oil extraction and export sales; natural gas extraction and export sales and resource tax for organizations authorized to sell seized, confiscated resources; infrequent resource extraction allowed or not required to be licensed as per legal regulations).

h) Declaration of corporate income tax at the location of the dependent unit or business establishment with income eligible for corporate income tax incentives.

i) Declaration of the environmental safety fee at the site of mineral extraction (excluding crude oil, natural gas, and coal gas extraction; organizations purchasing minerals from small-scale miners).

k) Declaration of license fee at the location of the dependent unit or business establishment.

Thus, referring to the above regulations, it can be observed that the environmental safety fee for iron ore mining will be declared at the site of iron mineral extraction.

Where is the place to declare environmental safety fee for iron ore mining in Vietnam?(Image from the Internet)

Which entities engaging in the iron ore mining in Vietnam are the environmental safety fee payers?

Pursuant to Clause 1, Article 4 of Decree 27/2023/ND-CP, the regulation is as follows:

Fee Payers

Fee payers for environmental protection in mining as per this Decree include:

1. Organizations and individuals mining minerals in accordance with mining law.

2. Vietnamese and foreign entities permitted to extract crude oil, natural gas, coal gas under petroleum contracts or conducting petroleum services in accordance with petroleum law.

3. Organizations and individuals permitted to perform small-scale mineral extraction and sell to organizations and individuals aggregating these resources, where the aggregating organization agrees in writing to declare and pay fees on behalf of the mineral extracting individual or organization, the aggregating entity is the fee payer.

Thus, referring to the above regulations, the organization iron ore mining will be the fee payer for environmental protection, according to mineral law.

What are 03 cases of environmental safety fee exemption in Vietnam?

Based on Article 5 of Decree 27/2023/ND-CP, the three cases exempted from the environmental safety fee are specified as follows:

Case 1. Mining activities for common construction materials within the land area under land use rights of households or individuals for construction of projects by households or individuals on that land.

Case 2. Mining activities for soil and rock for filling, construction of security, military, disaster prevention, and disaster recovery projects. In cases where the mined soil and rock are used both for filling, construction of security, military, disaster prevention, disaster recovery projects and for other purposes, the organization or individual is responsible for determining the volume of soil and rock eligible for exemption; the amount of soil and rock used for other purposes must pay the environmental safety fee for mineral extraction.

Case 3. Use of waste rock and soil from extraction processes to rehabilitate and restore the environment at the mining site according to the environment rehabilitation and restoration plan approved by the competent authority.

The determination of the amount of waste rock and soil eligible for environmental safety fee exemption is based on:

+ Acceptance records of volume for each extraction process stage include: Preparing rock and soil, removing, transporting, and disposing of rock in accordance with point b, Clause 2, Article 41 of Decree 158/2016/ND-CP dated November 29, 2016, of the Government of Vietnam stipulating detailed implementation of some articles of the Law on Minerals.

+ Environmental recovery and restoration plan approved by the state authority according to Clause 3, Article 67 of the Law on Environmental Protection.

+ Mine closure dossier approved by the state authority according to mineral law.