Which accounting documents shall be permanently retained in Vietnam?

Which accounting documents shall be permanently retained in Vietnam?

According to Article 14 of Decree 174/2016/ND-CP, accounting documents that must be permanently retained include:

- For accounting units in the field of state accounting, accounting documents that must be permanently retained include the annual national budget finalization report approved by the National Assembly, the local budget finalization report approved by the respective People’s Councils; dossiers, finalization reports of completed projects in Group A, and nationally significant projects; other accounting documents with historical value, significant economic, security, and defense implications.

The determination of other accounting documents that must be permanently retained is decided by the legal representative of the accounting unit, based on the determination of historical value, and significant economic, security, and defense implications.

- For business operations, accounting documents that must be permanently retained include accounting documents with historical value, significant economic, security, and defense implications.

The determination of accounting documents that must be permanently retained is decided by the head or legal representative of the accounting unit, based on the historical value and long-term significance of the documents, information to decide on a case-by-case basis, and assign to the accounting department or other departments for retention in original form or another form.

- The permanent retention period must be more than 10 years until the accounting documents are naturally destroyed.

Which accounting documents shall be permanently retained in Vietnam? (Image from the Internet)

How to retain and provide information and accounting documents in Vietnam?

According to Article 9 of Circular 111/2021/TT-BTC, the retention and provision of information and accounting documents are conducted as follows:

- Tax accounting documents include input information for tax accounting, tax accounting vouchers, tax accounting books, tax accounting reports, and other documents related to tax accounting work, which are presented in the form of electronic data retained as per legal regulations on accounting.

Input data before being collected into the tax accounting subsystem is retained on the tax obligation management subsystem and other tax management business subsystems of the tax management application system according to the regulations of the General Director of Tax Administration. The Tax Administration is responsible for ensuring accessible retention for exploiting the source of input information for tax accounting.

- Provision of tax accounting information and documents

+ Provision of accounting information and documents is conducted in accordance with the law on accounting and taxation management.

+ The information and documents provided by tax accounting include amounts receivable, received, outstanding, refundable, refunded, outstanding refunds, exemptions, reductions, debt suspension, debt write-offs managed by the tax authority, and other related information reflected in the indicators of tax accounting reports as stipulated in this Circular.

What does tax accounting work include?

According to Article 6 of Circular 111/2021/TT-BTC, tax accounting work is one of the tax management functions performed by tax authorities at various levels, continuously and systematically, following tax management business processes on the tax management application system, including the tax accounting subsystem.

Tax accounting work includes the following tasks:

- Collect input information for tax accounting, prepare tax accounting vouchers

+ Collecting input information for tax accounting is an automatic task of the tax accounting subsystem connected with the taxpayer obligation management subsystem as stipulated in Articles 12, 13, 14, and 15 of Circular 111/2021/TT-BTC to fully determine the bookkeeping contents of each tax accounting account.

+ In cases where tax accounting books are not recorded through the information input collection process of the tax accounting subsystem, officials conducting tax accounting work prepare tax accounting vouchers according to regulations at Article 16 of this Circular.

- Recording tax accounting books is an automatic task of the tax accounting subsystem to record the input information of tax accounting and tax accounting vouchers as specified in Clause 1 of this Article for tax accounting, reflecting the business activities arising in the tax management during the tax accounting period, including opening books, recording books, closing books, and correcting tax accounting books as per the regulations in Section 3, Chapter II of Circular 111/2021/TT-BTC.

- Preparing tax accounting reports is an automatic task performed by the tax accounting subsystem or by officials conducting tax accounting work to summarize the results of tax management of tax authorities at different levels (including amounts receivable, received, outstanding, refundable, refunded, outstanding refunds, exemptions, reductions, debt suspension, debt write-offs) as per regulations in Section 4, Chapter II of Circular 111/2021/TT-BTC.

- Storing and providing tax accounting information and documents is a task of tax accounting conducted according to Article 9 of Circular 111/2021/TT-BTC.