Five commercial banks have been selected to pilot a 24/7 e-tax payment scheme from November this year.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong, deputy director of the Estimation and Budget Management Division under the General Department of Customs (GDC)’s Import-Export Duty Department, said the banks include Vietcombank, Vietinbank, BIDV, MB and Techcombank.

With the new form of tax payment, enterprises will pay tax directly at the 24/7 Electronic Customs Payment Portal anytime and anywhere with internet access. The customs authority will directly support enterprises to make payment documents from the original data and minimise errors in money transfer procedures.

The form of tax payment will also ensure the integrity and confidentiality of all taxpayers’ information during the transaction and customise information fields in exchanging one or more forms at banks to reduce their working time with banks.

It will also enable commercial banks to co-ordinate with the GDC to develop and improve payment services for customers, attract more potential customers and limit information errors in payment documents.

For tax agency, this scheme will help reduce personnel for tax collection and simplify related processes. It ensures that tax is correctly settled right after taxpayers fulfill their duties, hence avoiding mistaken coercion. It will also minimise information errors in tax forms besides increasing the degree of satisfaction of businesses and international investors.

The 24/7 tax payment scheme will be applied to only commercial banks signing collection agreements with the GDC.

The new service is the next reform step of the customs sector to help enterprises quickly clear goods and carry out extensive cross-sector reforms to reach the ASEAN 4 level of export and import facilitation, as guided by the Government. — VNS