Vietnam: New Circular on tax registration 2016

The Ministry of Finance issued Circular 95/2016/TT-BTC providing guidance on tax registration, replacing Circular 80/2012/TT-BTC dated 22/5/2012 with effect from 12 August.

Some notable changes are highlighted below:

v Different deadlines apply for foreign contractors (“FCs”) declaring foreign contractor tax (“FCT”) via their Vietnamese customers or directly with the tax authorities:

- The Vietnamese customer must register to declare and pay on behalf of the FC within 10 working days from the date the obligation to withhold and pay FCT arises - this is not clear and seems to refer to the deadline for FCT declaration of the first payment made to the FC (which is the 10th day from the payment date, or the 20th day of the following month in case of monthly declarations). However practically the tax registration should be completed before the FCT declaration and payment.

- FCs directly declaring FCT must carry out tax registration procedures within 10 working days of the contract signing date.

v More guidelines are provided on tax codes for parties to oil and gas contracts.

v Where a transfer results in a change of ownership of a contractor to an oil and gas contract, the contractor should use its 13 digit tax code to declare tax in Vietnam for the transferor.

v Forms for tax registration of employees and dependents change (now form 05- DK-TH-TCT for tax registration of employees, and form 20-DK-TCT for tax registration of dependents).

v Information on various taxpayers is now publicised on the General Department of Taxation’s portal, including:

- Taxpayers that cease operations, regardless of whether their tax codes have been deactivated;
- Taxpayers that do not operate at their registered address;
- Taxpayers whose tax codes have been reactivated.

v Circular 95 specifies certain cases where tax authorities can reactivate tax codes (that were previously deactivated) for taxpayers.

Please contact us if you would like to discuss the above.