Important Changes to Vietnam’s Tax Regulations

Vietnam’s government has made some important changes to the country’s tax regulations over the first four months of 2012, and has issued Circular 06, which took effect from March 1, providing a detailed guidance on some key changes to VAT rules.

The government has underlined that VAT is enforceable on interest from loan agreements between non-credit institutions. Moreover, a schedule of cases was made in which input VAT of expenses paid by authorized parties can be claimed by authorizing parties and typical cases which constitute payment via banking channels.

The government’s recent measures saw the abolition of some regulations, such as in Circular 94/2010/TT-BTC concerning temporary refunds of VAT for goods which from January 1, 2012 have been exported and have cleared export procedures, but for which payment via banking channels has not yet been received. However, other articles of Circular 94 regarding refund dossiers and VAT refunds in other cases remain applicable.

A definitive guidance on supporting documents was also enacted for export services in which the 0 percent VAT rate can finally be applied.

Other important points of change involve that the deductible price of land used for determination of VAT taxable price is measured pursuant to Decree 121 and Circular 06 in cases where:

• The first payment stipulated in the real estate assignment contract is due after March 1, 2012
• The amount of payment received before March , 2012 does not exceed 20 percent of the total payment specified in the contract

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