New points on tax administration from July 01st, 2026
September 21st, 2026
On December 10th, 2025, the National Assembly issued the Law on Tax Administration No. 108/2025/QH15 (“Law on Tax Administration 2025”) regulating the administration of taxes and other amounts payable to the state budget. The Law on Tax Administration 2025 came into effect from July 01st, 2026 and introduced changes in tax administration, such as focusing on digital transformation and management based on data and risk, with a broad impact ranging from large enterprises to small and medium-sized enterprises, business households and individual businesses. Accordingly, taxpayers should take note of the following new provisions of the Law on Tax Administration 2025:
1. Taxpayers:
The new regulations identify 05 cases considered as taxpayers. In which, it is clarified that taxpayers include:
- Foreign organizations, foreign individuals doing business in Vietnam or having income in Vietnam;
- Foreign organizations, foreign individuals doing business via e-commerce platforms, other digital platforms.
2. Categorization of taxpayers
Taxpayers are categorized for the purpose of determining priority regimes, allocating management resources and applying tax administration measures, supervising the fulfillment of tax obligations appropriate to each of categories. The criteria for categorizing taxpayers include:
- Business lines, industries, specific characteristics, operational methods;
- Legal form, ownership structure;
- Operation scale, revenue scale, state budget contribution amount;
- Compliance level and compliance history with tax laws of the taxpayers;
- Other criteria as prescribed by the Minister of Finance.
Based on the criteria for categorizing taxpayers, tax authorities shall analyze the data and information of taxpayers to evaluate and rank taxpayers according to the compliance level with tax laws (in tax registration, tax declaration, tax payment; tax debt status; tax inspection results; compliance with decisions of the tax authorities); the level of tax risk (in the use of e-invoices, tax refunds/exemptions/reductions, etc.) and apply management measures appropriate to the risk level and compliance classification. Accordingly:
(i) Taxpayers in the group of good compliance and low risk shall be applied preferential regimes;
(ii) Taxpayers in the group of average compliance and low or medium risk shall be applied compliance support programs, measures for propaganda, support, guidance, training;
(iii) Taxpayers in the group of low compliance or high risk shall be applied warning, supervision, and monitoring measures to prevent potential risks;
(iv) Non-compliant taxpayers shall be placed under focused tax supervision.
3. Prohibited activities in tax administration
Some prohibited activities are supplemented, clarified, including:
(i) Abusing position, authority to unlawfully disclose or leak taxpayer information. Falsifying the results of tax law inspections, handling of tax law violations;
(ii) Resisting, delaying or failing to provide information, documents serving inspection, supervision of taxes and other amounts;
(iii) Forging invoices, documents to commit illegal activities. Unlawfully creating electronic invoices, documents or serving violations in the field of tax management;
(iv) Providing, disseminating false information that affects the reputation, operations of tax authorities, taxpayers, the Tax Administration Information System.
4. Reduction of the time limit for filing supplementary tax declarations
Taxpayers who discover errors, omissions in their tax, other revenue declarations already submitted to the tax authorities are permitted to submit supplementary tax, other amount declarations within 05 years from the expiration date of the deadline for filing the tax or other amount declarations for the tax period with errors, omissions, instead of the previous 10-year period.
This right to file supplementary tax declarations shall be applied prior to the tax authority, the competent authority announcing a decision on tax inspection or audit, or where an inspection, audit decision has been issued but the errors, omissions fall outside the scope, period of such inspection, audit or in other specific cases as ruled.
5. Business households and individual businesses shall self-determine annual revenue for tax calculation
- Business households, individual businesses shall self-determine whether their revenue from the production and trading of goods, services is taxable or exempt from tax.
- Business households, individual businesses shall perform tax declaration, calculation for personal income tax, value-added tax according to the tax period. The tax authorities shall be based on the information provided by the management databases to support business households, individual businesses in tax declaration, calculation.
6. Regulations on tax declaration for e-commerce business activities of business households, individual businesses
Regulations on tax declaration for business households, individual businesses doing business via e-commerce platforms or other digital platforms are supplemented, specifically:
- If the business activities are conducted on e-commerce platforms, other digital platforms with online ordering and payment functions, the operators of the e-commerce platforms, other digital platforms (whether domestic or foreign) shall be responsible for withholding, declaring and paying the withheld tax on behalf of the business households, individual businesses;
- If the business activities are conducted on e-commerce platforms, other digital platforms without online ordering and payment functions, the business households, individual businesses shall directly declare tax, calculate tax according to the regulations.
7. Mechanism for automatic tax refunds, tax exemptions, tax reductions
Tax authorities shall implement automatic tax refunds, tax exemptions, tax reductions for taxpayers based on database, risk management criteria, automated processing procedures and information security assurance in each phase, in accordance with actual conditions, infrastructure capacity and information technology applications. Accordingly:
- For tax refunds:
· Determination of the refundable tax amount:
o The Tax Administration Information System shall review, cross-reference the information declared in tax dossiers against management information of the tax authorities and information provided by competent state authorities (if any);
o Based on such review, cross-reference, the Tax Administration Information System shall determine dossiers, amounts requested refund falling into the following cases: (i) requiring explanation, additional information, documentation; or (ii) a portion of the requested refund amount in the scope of high risk in tax management; or (iii) the requested refund amount is eligible for tax refund/not eligible for tax refund/not yet eligible for tax refund and the tax authority shall issue the corresponding Notice/Decision for each respective case.
· In cases of automatic tax refund pursuant to regulations, the Tax Administration Information System shall automatically execute the Decision/Notice issued by the tax authority.
- For tax exemptions, tax reductions:
· For dossiers where the taxpayers self- determine the amount of tax exempted or reduced: if the tax authority’s System determines that the dossier is eligible for automated tax exemption, tax reduction, the system shall automatically inspect, cross-reference the information in the dossier against the tax management database and legal regulations to determine the amounts eligible and not eligible for tax exemption, tax reduction. The tax authority shall not be required to return processing results for application of tax exemption, tax reduction.
· For dossiers where the tax authority determines the exempted, reduced income or tax amounts, or through the tax declaration dossier: if the Tax Administration Information System determines that the dossier is eligible for automated processing, the system shall automatically inspect, cross-reference and determine the income or tax amounts eligible and not eligible for tax exemption, tax reduction. The tax authority must return processing results for applications according to regulations.
8. Regulations on tax inspections
(i) Adding more principles for tax inspections, such as:
- Prioritizing online and remote inspections based on electronic data;
- Ensuring no duplication regarding content, scope, timing of tax inspection among inspection authorities, the State Audit Office, except where there is evidence or grounds indicating violation requiring re-inspection;
- Inspecting the determination of related-party transaction prices of taxpayers based on the arm’s length principle and the economic substance of the activities, transactions arising that determine tax obligations corresponding to the value created from the economic substance of the taxpayer’s business activities and arising transactions; related-party transactions that do not comply with the arm’s length principle and reduce tax obligations shall not be recognized.
(ii) Amending the tax inspection period to align with the specific characteristics of tax inspections when the tax authorities no longer possess the tax audit functions:
- The tax inspection period is increased from no longer than 10 working days to no longer than 20 days from the date of announcement of the inspection decision, if necessary, the period may be extended once but not exceeding 20 days;
- The tax inspection period for enterprises with related-party transactions shall not exceed 40 days, if necessary, it may be extended once but not exceeding 40 days. In complicated cases requiring information exchange with foreign tax authorities, the tax inspection period may be extended but shall not exceed 02 years.
9. Rights and obligations of taxpayers
(i) About the rights of taxpayers:
- Adding several new groups of rights, including:
· To refuse on-site tax inspections at the taxpayer’s premises in specific cases;
· To apply the preferential regime if all conditions prescribed by law are satisfied;
· To check the status of tax obligations fulfillment, receive notifications of outstanding tax amounts via the electronic transaction account provided by the tax administration authority;
· To exempt from submitting documents, records already available in the database of the tax administration authority; etc.
- Expanding the scope of several rights in the direction of:
· To exempt from administrative penalties, late payment interest for invoice-related violations where the taxpayers fulfill obligations of tax, invoices under administrative documents or handling decisions of competent authorities;
· To authorize to have tax declared and paid on one’s behalf in accordance with regulations, besides hiring tax or customs agents; etc.
(ii) About the obligations of taxpayers:
- Adding several new groups of obligations, including:
· To pay tax under a coded identifier for payables in cases the tax authority provides the coded identifier for payable tax amount.
· To provide information to tax authorities for the purpose of exchanging information with foreign tax authorities under international treaties and international agreements on taxation;
· To use tax-exempt, other revenue-exempt, non-taxable goods, services for declared purposes; if the purpose of use is changed, taxpayers must re-declare and pay taxes, other amounts and arising amounts as prescribed by law; etc.
- Expanding the scope of several obligations in the direction of:
· To pay in full and on time; be responsible for fulfilling obligations (including cases where legal representatives or authorized representatives perform procedures on behalf of taxpayers); pay the assessed amount in accordance with tax handling regulations/of tax administration authorities and be obligated to explain the calculation and declaration for “other amounts”;
· To be legally responsible for the accuracy, truthfulness and completeness of “documents provided to tax administration authorities during the tax application processing”; etc.
10. New services of organizations providing tax procedure services
A notable new point under the Law on Tax Administration 2025 is that organizations providing services of tax procedure (tax agents) are allowed to provide accounting services for micro-enterprises, business households and individual businesses, provided that they have at least one person holding an accountant certificate.
11. Effective date and transitional provisions
- The Law on Tax Administration 2025 came into effect from July 01st, 2026, except for the provisions on tax declaration, tax calculation, tax withholding for business households, individual businesses (Article 13) and the provisions on e-invoices for business households, individual businesses (Article 26), which came into effect from January 01st, 2026.
- Amounts of tax that are exempted, reduced, not collected pursuant to the provisions of law applicable in each respective period, arising before July 01st, 2026, shall continue to be handled according to the provisions of the Law on Tax Administration 2019.
- Amounts of tax debt outstanding as of June 30th, 2026, shall be handled in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Tax Administration 2025.
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The Law on Tax Administration 2025 not only inherits the provisions appropriate but also amends and supplements more clauses in a clearer, more transparent manner, suitable for the digital transformation context. To align with the trend of digital transformation in tax administration, enterprises should proactively update new policies, standardize electronic records and enhance tax management capabilities.
In order to receive legal support and advice on applicability evaluations of tax administration regulations and the preparation of necessary documents, enterprises can contact us with the following information:
LEGAL ASSOCIATES LAW FIRM
Address: Room D14, Floor 2, 40 Ba Huyen Thanh Quan, Xuan Hoa Ward, Ho Chi Minh City
Phone number: 028 3930 6949
Email: thaianh.luong@la-vn.com
Address: Room D14, Floor 2, 40 Ba Huyen Thanh Quan, Xuan Hoa Ward, Ho Chi Minh City
Phone number: 028 3930 6949
Email: thaianh.luong@la-vn.com