Language when dealing with tax authorities

Powers of tax administration

Article 19 of the Law on Tax Administration 2019 on entitlements of tax authorities, specifically:

(1) Request the taxpayer to provide information and documents related to the determination of tax liability, including information about investment value, numbers, transaction contents of the accounts opened at commercial banks, other credit institutions, and explanation for the tax calculation, tax declaration, and tax payment.

(2) Request relevant entities to provide information and documents related to determination of tax liability and cooperate with tax authority in implementation of law on taxation.

(3) Tax inspection as prescribed by law.

(4) Tax assessment.

(5) Enforcement of administrative decisions on tax administration.

(6) To sanction administrative violations on tax management under competence; to publicize on mass media cases of violations of tax law.

(7) To apply preventive measures and ensure the handling of administrative violations on tax management as prescribed by law.

(8) To authorize an agency, organization or individual to collect some taxes prescribed by the Government.

(9) The tax authority shall apply the mechanism for prior agreement on the method of determining taxable prices with taxpayers, foreign tax authorities, and territories with which Vietnam has signed an agreement on avoidance of double taxation and prevention of tax evasion with respect to income tax.

(10) Buy information, documents, and data from Vietnamese and foreign suppliers to serve tax administration; pay the cost of authorized tax collection from the tax collected or from the budget of the tax authority as prescribed by the Government.

Language used when dealing with tax authorities

Language used when dealing with tax authorities

Pursuant to Article 85 of Circular 80/2021/TT-BTC on guidelines for the Law on Tax administration and Decree No. 126/2020/ND-CP on guidelines for the Law on Tax administration promulgated by the Minister of Finance on languages permitted for use in transaction documents with tax authorities, in particular:

Language used in tax dossier is Vietnamese. Documents in foreign languages must be translated into Vietnamese. The taxpayer shall append his/her signature and seal on the translation and take responsibility before law for the content of the translation. If the total length of documents in a foreign language exceeds 20 A4 pages, the taxpayer shall make a written explanation and only translate the contents and terms related to tax determination.

For dossiers of application for tax exemption or reduction under tax treaties, the taxpayer shall, depending on the nature of each type of contract and requirements of the tax office (if any), translate the contract's contents such as the contract name, title of contractual terms, contract performance duration or actual period of experts of the foreign contractor present in Vietnam (if any), responsibilities and commitments of each party; regulations on confidentiality and product ownership (if any), subjects competent to sign contracts and contents related to the determination of tax liability and similar contents (if any); and concurrently send copies of the contract certified by the taxpayer.

Consular legalization of papers and documents issued by foreign competent agencies is only compulsory in specific cases guided in Article 30, Article 62 and Article 70 of this Circular.

For the other's questions, the Vietnamese law shall apply. Documents in foreign languages must be translated into Vietnamese. The taxpayer shall append his/her signature and seal on the translation and take responsibility before law for the content of the translation. If the total length of documents in a foreign language exceeds 20 A4 pages, the taxpayer shall make a written explanation and only translate the contents and terms related to tax determination.

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