The HCMC Tax Department on July 29 admitted responsibility for wrongly naming 26 local enterprises as tax debtors.

The department’s director Nguyen Dinh Tan said the agency has made public apologies to 26 enterprises which were publicized as tax debtors with a total amount of VND508 billion (nearly US$23.3 million) though they had fulfilled their tax obligations.

Tan told the ongoing session of the HCMC People’s Council on July 29 that besides the apologies, the agency has seriously looked into why such inaccurate information appeared on the Ministry of Finance’s website. The agency regretted the mistake as it did not gather data carefully.

Tan explained HCMC started applying an electronic tax management program last January, and there were some glitches related to data transfers from the old system to the new one.

Tan said the department was told to identify slow tax payers and that without careful reviews, local tax offices submitted the names of 200 local tax debtors to the Ministry of Finance for publicizing on its website.

Tan said as false information about tax debts has greatly affected those enterprises which fulfilled their tax obligations, the department has issued its official apologies in local newspapers.

“We apologize to enterprises for giving inaccurate information about their tax payments. We will continue reviewing data in order to avoid providing information as irresponsibly as we did,” Tan said at the session which was broadcast live on HCMC Television (HTV) on July 29 morning.

Nguyen Thi Quyet Tam, chairwoman of the HCMC People’s Council, cast doubt on the accuracy of tax arrears in the city as they are much higher than budget collections in many provinces.