An officer of the Ha Noi Tax Department instructs and consults on tax payment for an enterprise representative. Ha Noi Customs Department has collected VND442.47 billion (over US$21 million) in import-export tax arrears until mid-December. — VNA/VNS Photo Hoang Hung

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Hanoi Customs Department has collected VND442.47 billion (over US$21 million) in import-export tax arrears, gaining 81.11 per cent of its target at mid-December.

Tran Dai Thang, head of the department's import-export duty division, said the collection of the tax arrears had faced numerous difficulties despite their efforts to expedite the collection process and complete procedures for tax enforcement.

Implementing deductions from the money in the enterprises' bank accounts proved to be an ineffective method of tax enforcement. The problems arise when the department attempts to verify the account balance of these businesses at commercial banks. They discover that most of the firms in debt have no account in the banks or have insufficient money in the account to cover their debts.

In one case, the enterprise had sufficient money in the bank when the department conducted its initial verification. However, the money disappeared after the bank was ordered to extract it from the account.

Customs enforcement was ineffective as well. One of the reasons for the failure is that most of the enterprises in debt had not performed any customs procedures. In some cases, customs officers visited the head offices registered by the enterprises only to discover that these offices did not exist at these locations. Therefore, the tax agency found it difficult to confirm with the department the enterprise's activities due to the challenges faced in obtaining the new addresses of the said businesses. — VNS