Vietnam faces increasing tax evasion and avoidance as policies have not kept up with reality, according to a report by the Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR) and Oxfam.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has said it will talk with the US on the case of local Minh Phu seafood firm, which was accused of tax evasion in the US.

Minh Phu Seafood Corp shares fell for a second day after the company confirmed it would co-operate with the US investigation into whether the Vietnamese firm had evaded anti-dumping taxes or not.

Nguyen Nhat Kha, acting director of Risk Management Division under the General Department of Vietnam Customs speaks about measures to manage risks, prevent tax evasion and commercial fraud.

Local authorities are trialing ways to prevent multinationals from structuring affairs in order to divert profits to low tax jurisdictions.

Some Vietnamese exports have been investigated for origin fraud and tax evasion, which requires tougher action from the Vietnamese Government to settle the problem and keep its exports growing.

The Government will adopt stricter penalties to prevent foreign goods being exported to the other markets under Vietnamese labels to avoid tariffs.

As of May 15, the total tax debt at the HCM City Customs Department reached VND2.4trn (USD102.2m), of which over VND1.4trn were bad debts.

All businesses have to pay tax for income they earn in Vietnam. However, Vietnamese taxation bodies have not found solutions to force foreign online booking agents such as booking.com and Agoda to fulfill their tax duties.

VietNamNet Bridge - About 50 dollar millionaires in Vietnam earn billions of dong a month via Facebook, according to a Facebook representative. However, the taxation body said it cannot collect taxes from these sellers.

Agoda, Traveloka, Booking and Expedia have to pay VAT (value added tax) and CIT (corporate income tax), which is 5 percent of total revenue, for profits from doing business in Vietnam, according to the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnamese enterprises are complaining that they cannot compete with cheap Chinese car imports that evade taxes.

VietNamNet Bridge – The balance is tilting towards open-mindedness when Transport Minister Dinh La Thang orders affiliated agencies to take into prudent consideration the possibility of legalizing Uber taxi service,

 VietNamNet Bridge – A number of foreign-invested enterprises have allegedly tried to evade tax over the last 10 years but no proof of guilt has been found.

 VietNamNet Bridge – The Ha Noi People's Court yesterday sentenced Nguyen Duc Kien, former vice chairman of the founding council of the Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), to 30 years imprisonment.

VietNamNet Bridge - Tax obligations often significantly burden businesses operating in Vietnam. To maximize profit, companies often seek out ways to avoid mandatory tax payments.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Bottled drinks with the label “functional food” and alcohol concentrations of up to 35 percent are regularly served at street shops and luxurious restaurants.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Given the legal loopholes that exist in current tax laws, many have found it easy to circumvent government regulations and decisions by  ministries and agencies.

 VietNamNet Bridge – The practices of transfer pricing and tax evasion have been found at nearly all the foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) that the General Department of Taxation has inspected recently.

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