Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – In the
next few months, tax payments for customs clearance will be made available
online, round-the-clock.
This will allow enterprises to pay
tax at anytime and from anywhere, provided they have internet access, said the
General Department of Customs.
The department said that it planned
to expand the 24/7 online tax payment scheme to all 36 commercial banks, which
signed collection agreements with the General Department of Customs, in November
and December.
The 24/7 online tax payment scheme
had been initially piloted at five commercial banks, namely Vietcombank,
Vietinbank, BIDV, MBBank and Techcombank, from late October with around 100
successful transactions in the past week.
The department’s statistics revealed
that online tax payment via banks accounted for 90 percent of the customs’
budget collection. However, many banks currently did not allow tax payments
after the cut-off time, which would cause delays in customs clearance.
Luu Manh Tuong, Director of
Import-Export Tax Department, said at a press conference on October 31, that
with the implementation of 24/7 online tax payment via banks and customs
clearance projects, taxpayers can make payments at anytime, even during
out-of-office hours, weekends or holidays, which will help reduce the time for
completing customs clearance procedures and reduce cash payments.
For example, if a batch of goods
arrived at 5p.m. on Friday and the firm could not pay tax
because it was past working hours, it would have to wait until next week to pay
tax for customs clearance. Now, with the 24/7 online tax payment, the firm can
pay tax online immediately for customs clearance. With a registered digital
signature and a letter of authorization, firms can access the
website, https://epayment.customs.gov.vn/epaymentportal/login, to pay tax
online.
As of March, 126 major customs
procedures, or 70 percent of the sector’s procedure counts, were conducted
online and 42 others are scheduled to go online by the end of this year.
From the beginning of this year to
October 25, around 8.86 million files for customs clearance of 74,600 firms
were handled online.-VNA