Guidance on destruction of tax authority-ordered printed invoices in Vietnam

Regulations on use of tax authority-ordered printed invoices in Vietnam

Pursuant to Article 23 of Decree 123/2020/ND-CP, Departments of Taxation in provinces and centrally-affiliated cities (hereinafter referred to as “provincial Departments of Taxation”) may order the printing of invoices resold to the following entities:

- Enterprises, business entities, and household or individual businesses mentioned in Clause 1 Article 14 of Decree 123/2020/ND-CP if they do not have electronic transactions with tax authorities, IT infrastructure, accounting software systems or e-invoicing software functioning as the tools of using e-invoices and transmitting e-invoice data to buyers and tax authorities.

Enterprises, business entities, and household or individual businesses may buy invoices from tax authorities for a period of up to 12 months while tax authorities must have solutions for gradually converting to the use of e-invoices.

Before using e-invoices, business entities, and household or individual businesses must apply for use of authenticated or unauthenticated e-invoices (if eligible) in accordance with the provisions in Article 15 of Decree 123/2020/ND-CP.

- Enterprises, business entities, and household or individual businesses during the period of failure of the tax authority’s authentication code issuing system as prescribed in Clause 2 Article 20 of Decree 123/2020/ND-CP.

Guidance on destruction of tax authority-ordered printed invoices in Vietnam (Internet image)

Guidance on destruction of tax authority-ordered printed invoices in Vietnam

The destruction of tax authority-ordered printed invoices in Vietnam must comply with the instructions in Article 27 of Decree 123/2020/ND-CP as follows:

(1) Enterprises, business entities, household or individual businesses shall destroy their unused invoices. Invoices must be destroyed within 30 days from the date on which the destruction is notified to the tax authority. If an invoice is expired according to the tax authority’s notice (in case of enforcement of payment of tax debts), the relevant enterprise, business entity, household or individual business shall carry out the destruction of invoice within 10 days from the date of the tax authority’s notice or the date on which the lost invoice is found.

Invoices issued by accounting units shall be destroyed in accordance with regulations of the Law on accounting.

Invoices which are not yet issued but are exhibits of lawsuit cases shall not be destroyed and must be handled in accordance with regulations of laws.

(2) Invoices of enterprises, business entities, household or individual businesses shall be destroyed as follows:

- The enterprise, business entity, household or individual business shall make the list of invoices to be destroyed.

- The enterprise or business entity shall establish an invoice destruction council. The invoice destruction council is comprised of senior representatives and representatives of accounting department. The household or individual business is not required to establish an invoice destruction council.

- The invoice destruction record shall bear signatures of members of the invoice destruction council who shall assume legal liability for any mistakes thereof.

- Invoice destruction dossier includes:

+ The decision on establishment of the invoice destruction council, except household or individual businesses;

+ The list of invoices to be destroyed, including: Name, form number and reference number of the invoice, number of destroyed invoices (from number….to number…., or number of each invoice if the invoice numbers are not continuous);

+ The invoice destruction record;

+ The notice of invoice destruction result includes: type, reference number and quantity of destroyed invoice, from number…..to number….., reasons, date and time, and method of destruction, using Form No. 02/HUY-HDG in Appendix IA enclosed herewith.

The invoice destruction dossier shall be kept by the enterprise, business entity, household or individual business using invoices. The notice of invoice destruction result is made into 02 copies of which one copy is kept on file, and the other is sent to the supervisory tax authority within 05 working days from the date of invoice destruction.

(3) Destruction of invoices by tax authorities

- Tax authorities shall take charge of destroying invoices which are printed according to orders of a Provincial Department of Taxation, are not sold or issued but are no longer used.

- The General Department of Taxation shall promulgate procedures for destruction of invoices printed according to orders of Provincial Departments of Taxation.

Mai Thanh Loi

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