VietNamNet Bridge – Petroleum enterprises, which are in the state of “willing speech but unwilling heart”, have decided to claim back hundreds of billions of dong worth of tax they paid before.

Enterprises full of pent-up anger

Petect has sent a dispatch to the Ministry of Finance (MOF), requesting the ministry to pay back the taxes it paid some days ago under a ministry’s decision to collect tax arrears from the enterprise.

In early August 2013, the General Department of Customs released a decision that Petect had to pay an additional sum of VND66.6 billion worth of tax. The new tax sum arose because the Petec’s imports for re-export later in 2012 finally were not exported in reality, but were consumed domestically.

Petect was the eighth petroleum enterprise which received a demand to pay tax arrears.

However, just one week later, the company sent a letter to the Ministry of Finance, requesting the ministry not to tax the petroleum products and pay back the sum of money to it.

A representative of Petec said since the company could not anticipate the arisen business costs, the additional tax of VND66.6 billion has made the company’s bad financial situation worse.

Petec also complained that it now seriously lacks capital for business, while the market rules still have not been applied to the petroleum trading.

Prior to that, NamViet Oil also claimed back the VND26 billion worth of tax from the General Department of Customs imposed on the imports for domestic consumption, not for export as initially planned.

However, NamViet Oil has not “yielded” to the command.

Petrolimex, the enterprise, which holds 60 percent of the petroleum distribution market, has not officially claimed back the money, but has expressed its dissatisfaction with the finance ministry.

“The tax sum of VND170 billion would be counted as “other expenses” in the balance sheet, a loss carried forward from the previous year to 2013,” said Tran Ngoc Nam, Deputy General Director of Petrolimex.

“If the finance ministry had collected VND170 billion in tax in 2012, the VND170 billion sum could have been listed as the product costs,” he explained.

Trinh Quang Khanh, Deputy Chair of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Association, has confirmed that all the 6 petroleum importers have complained about the taxation, saying they would claim back the additional tax sums.

According to Khanh, the enterprises had to pay the additional tax, because if they did not do this, they would not have the next petroleum consignment imports cleared. In other words, they are in the state of “willing speech but unwilling heart.”

MOF applies iron discipline

Sources said that MOF would spare no one when collecting tax arrears, especially when it has received a request from the State Audit that the ministry has to tax the imports for domestic consumption instead of re-export. The sum of tax it needs to collect is VND470 billion instead of VND345 billion as previously planned.

In early 2012, the petroleum import tariff was 0-3 percent. Later, it rose to 12 percent at the end of the year, which has made the tax arrears rise to VND470 billion.

Prior to that, on July 19, the Ministry of Justice announced that the Document No. 17060 of the Ministry of Finance does not have the legality to implement the tax arrears collection. However, the finance ministry has replied that it will not remove the document.

Pham Huyen