New sanction levels for late submission of tax return

The Vietnamese government issued Decree 125/2020/ND-CP (Decree 125) on October 19, 2020 listing several penalties and administrative fines for breaches in tax and invoicing regulations. The Decree has come into effect since December 5, 2020.

In accordance with the Decree 125, late submission of tax returns shall incur higher fine. To avoid the fine, the tax payer, accordingly, needs to strictly follow the DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF TAX RETURNS as regulated at the Article 44 of the Law on Tax Administration 2019 by the Vietnam National Assembly.

The new sanction levels for violations against regulations on the deadline for submission of tax return dossiers under Article 13 of Decree 125/2020/ND-CP are as below:

Note: For a tax or invoice-related administrative violation, if an entity commits such violation, they must be fined two times as much as the amount of penalty imposed on persons. The above fines are applicable to organizations (Pursuant to Clause 5, Article 5 and Point a, Clause 4, Article 7 of Decree 125/2020 / ND-CP)

Time limits for imposition of tax-related administrative penalties

Pursuant to Point a, Clause 2, Article 8 of Decree 125/2020 / ND-CP, time limit for imposition of penalties for administrative violations against regulations on tax-related procedures shall be 02 years from the date of commission of these violations.

• For cases 1, 2, 3, 4.1, 4.2, the date of commission of any of these acts which is accepted as the start date of that time limit shall be the date on which taxpayers apply for tax registrations or notify tax authorities or file tax returns.
• For cases 4.3 and 4.4, the date of commission of these acts which is accepted as the start date of that time limit shall be the date on which competent law enforcement officers detect these acts.