The economic crisis has seen 54,500 firms shut down on average in HCM City every year since 2007.— File Photo

HCM CITY (Biz Hub)– The economic crisis has seen 54,500 firms shut down on average in HCM City every year since 2007, city Tax Bureau officials told their Public Security Bureau counterparts at a meeting on June 6th on tax-related crimes.

However, the actual number of businesses that shut -- or disappeared --could be much higher since many did not bother to register for the tax code, the tax agency said.

But at the same time the number of firms newly incorporating has been rising since 2007, when around 69,462 were given tax codes.

After the closures there are around 155,803 businesses with tax codes now, it said.

Since 2007 the tax authorities have reported 1,486 cases of tax violations to police. The police took criminal action in 11 cases, while in 86 others the offenders were slapped penalties.

The public security and tax agencies together collected back taxes and fines of more than VND228 billion (US$11 million) during the period. VNS