The proposal to allow small traders to declare all their inventory, pay taxes in full, and "turn a new page" and pay taxes according to sales invoices is receiving many different opinions.
Don't dare open the door because the inventory lacks invoices.
On the morning of the first day of the week (June 09), many small traders at some traditional wholesale markets in Ho Chi Minh City went to the market, but did not dare to open their stores for fear of being inspected and having their goods confiscated due to selling goods without input invoices.
A footwear trader at An Dong Market (District 5) said: “It is also difficult to open the stall door at the market because if the market management checks, I don’t know how to prove the origin of the purchased goods. But if I don’t open the stall, I still have to pay taxes, pay employees, pay warehouse rent, rent space… When I open the stall, all kinds of money will be around. In the past few days, the management agency did not check the market, but went to the warehouses of traders to check and confiscate a lot of goods because there were no input invoices. We can only recommend that the government have a roadmap so that business households and traders have time to rectify and reorganize their business activities to “turn a new page”. In the current situation, the risk of bankruptcy, being in trouble because they don’t dare to sell goods, and having their goods confiscated and destroyed is too wasteful…”.
Wholesale market vendors close at the beginning of the week: What's going on?
Previously, traders at An Dong market had petitioned the authorities to consider allowing traders to re-declare all the goods in stock. They agreed to pay the full tax at once for these goods to continue doing business in the new period, switching from lump-sum tax payment to tax payment based on sales invoices from June 01. On June 06, speaking with PV Youth, small traders at Binh Tay market (District 6) and Tan Binh market (Tan Binh district) said they also asked to declare all goods in their stalls and warehouses, pay taxes fully and transparently before switching to the form of buying and selling goods with full invoices and paying taxes based on revenue.
It is known that after the meeting with more than 200 traders, An Dong Market Management Board will synthesize the opinions and recommendations of traders to report to superiors for consideration and preferential policies, creating favorable conditions for traders to adapt to the new regulations in the smoothest way.
We are in the market correction phase. After 6 months, everything will be clearer. Those who do business seriously and properly can reopen their shops to sell goods and put everything in order. Those who continue to sell tax-evading goods, counterfeit goods, etc. will be eliminated. Only then can we promote the development of domestic production.
– Associate Professor, PhD Vo Tri Hao
The "clear the table and redo" challenge
Senior expert, Associate Professor, Dr. Vo Tri Hao (Institute of International and Comparative Law - University of Economics and Law, Ho Chi Minh City National University) said that there are two problems happening at the same time, which are tax policies changing, creating fairness for honest business people. Tax collection based on revenue is giving honesty an equal opportunity to compete. From taxes, the second problem will be traced, which is goods of unknown origin, fake goods, and counterfeit goods have no place to survive. Currently, these two problems are interconnected, leading to traders in wholesale markets taking action to stop selling goods to cope.
“It is also necessary to clarify that the regulation on strictly prohibiting the trading of counterfeit and fake goods has been in place for more than 30 years, it is not new. Only the regulation on abolishing lump-sum tax and replacing it with a tax based on revenue is new. Therefore, from an economic perspective, goods without purchase invoices of small traders and business households need to be divided into two categories. Those are counterfeit goods, fake goods, substandard goods, toxic goods... that must be destroyed. If small traders can prove that the goods are not counterfeit, not counterfeit brands, not toxic... then they do not need to be destroyed. Because destroying them all would be very wasteful in terms of socio-economics,” Dr. Hao suggested.
According to Dr. Hao, if the origin of the goods cannot be proven, the method of speculation must be applied. Let small traders and business households declare all the goods in stock, in the stall, if the goods are speculated not to violate the law, not harmful to society, to the economy... then pay value added tax and tax on revenue of about 15%. The second way is to estimate the total value of that amount of goods for charity activities instead of destroying them. "We are in the transitional stage of creating the principle of fairness in business activities. Anyone who intentionally avoids taxes must give an inferred tax rate. People in the industry will figure this out by guessing", Associate Professor, Dr. Vo Tri Hao emphasized.
On the contrary, Associate Professor, Dr. Pham The Anh (Head of the Faculty of Economics, National Economics University) said that basically, legalizing goods of unclear origin, counterfeit goods, smuggled goods, goods that violate intellectual property rights, etc. is not allowed. “Declaration can be done if the origin can be proven, but tax evasion is very difficult. In reality, there are not only 2 million HKD individuals but also tens of millions of other workers who are working and must fulfill their income tax obligations to the state. There are tens of millions of salaried workers, all their income is fully displayed on VNeID and of course they must fully pay their tax obligations. While trading in counterfeit goods, smuggled goods, or declaring incomplete income is tolerated, it is very difficult to accept and in fact, the world has been doing this for decades. It must be done seriously,” Mr. The Anh clearly stated his point of view.
To limit tax risks when selling inventory without input invoices, businesses can proactively apply the following measures: Prepare a document explaining the origin of inventory, clearly stating the type, time of import, quantity, estimated value and source of purchase (from a contracting household without an invoice). Second, prepare a declaration table according to Circular 78/2021 to record the cost of purchasing goods without an invoice (purchased from individuals, contracting households), which is the basis for calculating the cost of goods sold during the period of using electronic invoices. Third, declare and pay taxes fully when selling inventory.
- Lawyer Nguyen Quoc Toan, Director of IAM Law Firm
Article source: Thanh Nien Magazine
