COVID-19 recognized as occupational disease from April 1

Circular 02/2023/TT-BYT amending Circular 15/2016/TT-BYT stipulating occupational diseases entitled to social insurance recently issued by the MoH, COVID-19 will become the 35th occupational disease, starting from April 1, 2023.

The occupations and sources of exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus include those who work in health establishments; those who work in laboratories taking, transporting, handling, preserving and destroying SARS-CoV-2 testing samples and others. 

Just one time is the minimum exposure to cause occupational diseases, labourers can contract the disease for up to 28 days after being exposed.

Guarantee for future houses

Circular 11/2022/TT-NHNN (Circular 11) of the State Bank of Viet Nam dated on September 30, 2022 regulates legal framework for bank guarantee includiding that for future houses.

A commercial bank will be regarded as capable of providing guarantee for future houses if it is not subject to prohibition from providing guarantee for future houses in the period of being placed under special control.

Circular 11 sets stricter requirements for a commercial bank to provide guarantee for future houses.

A guarantee contract for future houses must have the following terms:

(i) A commercial bank's obligation to issue a letter of guarantee to the purchaser when receiving the contract for purchase or lease-purchase of a house from the project owner before the deadline for handover of the house as committed in the house purchase or lease-purchase contract;

(ii) The commercial bank's and the project owner's agreement that either of them has the obligation to send a letter of guarantee to the purchaser after the commercial bank issues the letter of guarantee;

(iii) The project owner's financial obligations; and,

(iv) The term requiring the purchaser's dossier of request for performance of the guarantee obligation sent to the commercial bank to be enclosed with the letter of guarantee issued by the commercial bank to the purchaser.

Coming into force from April 1, Circular 11 will replace Circular 07/2015/TT-NHNN issued in 2015 and Circular 13/2017/TT-NHNN of 2017.

VAT refund applications for investment projects 

Circular 13/2023/TT-BTC (Circular 13) of the the Ministry of Finance dated February 28, 2023 guides the implementation of Decree 49/2022/ND-CP and amending Circular 80/2021/TT-BTC related to VAT.

Accordingly, Circular 13 amends, and supplements a number of articles of Circular No. 219/2013/TT-BTC as follows:

- To amend and supplement Clause 10, Article 7 as follows: For real estate transfer, the taxable price shall comply with Clause 1 Article 1 of the Decree No. 49/2022/ND-CP.

- To amend and supplement Clause 13, Article 7 as follows: The taxable prices for power production activities of the Vietnam Electricity shall comply with Clause 1 Article 1 of the Decree No. 49/2022/ND-CP.

- To replace Clause 2, Clause 3 Article 18 as follows: Business establishments shall be entitled to tax refunds for investment projects under Clause 3 Article 1 of the Decree No. 49/2022/ND-CP.

- Documents for tax refund of investment projects of establishments engaged in sectors and trades subject to conditional business investment, include: A copy of the license, certificate or written certification or approval for doing business in sectors or trades subject to conditional business investment.

Circular No. 13/2023/TT-BTC takes effect on April 14, 2023./.  VGP