Vietnam might delay the schedule of applying e-invoices until July 1, 2019 to facilitate businesses' preparations.

Nguyen Dai Tri, deputy general director of GDT, chaired the press conference

Nguyen Dai Tri, deputy general director of the General Department of Taxation (GDT), said at the press briefing on October 27 that the GDT is considering a delay before submitting an application roadmap to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) before MoF's proposal to be reported to the government.

Accordingly, the schedule of July 1, 2019 is applied for businesses that are using self-printed invoices or invoices bought from tax agencies, while those that are using e-invoices are subject to the earlier-planned schedule of January 1, 2018.

E-invoice is a new model in Vietnam, the application of which is in line with Resolution No.19/NQ-CP dated March 2015 and Resolution No.36a/NQ-CP dated October 2015 on improving the business climate.

According to GDT, the application of e-invoices can help firms save trillions of VND each year. However, the number of applicants remains modest.

Currently, around 2,700 businesses apply e-invoices. This is a small number compared with the 600,000 businesses operating nationwide.

As of October 23, 2017, 6,800 firms registered to join online tax-refund services. More than 3,600 online value-added tax refund documents were dealt with. Giant businesses applying e-invoices include EVN, Vietnam Airlines, and VNPT, among others.

VIR