VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of kinds of taxes make businesses
suffocate, while tens of different types of fees make them exhausted.
It is estimated that there are
over 10 types of fees that import-export companies have to bear. Pham Xuan
Hong, General Director of the Saigon 3 Garment Company, said he cannot remember
all the types of fees, adding that the company’s total spending on fees of
different types has increased by 20 percent in comparison with 2011.
Especially, some kinds of fees have increased by 50 percent.
Billions of dong spent on fees
Foreign shipping firms, which are
dominating the domestic shipping market, have eased the freights, but have
imposed a lot of new fees and additional charges.
Head of the Import-Export
Division of a garment company said his company has to pay more than 10 types of
regular fees when exporting a 20 feet container. Besides, it can also be
imposed with some unexpected kinds of fees, including the fire prevent charge,
monetary surcharge, or strike fee which is imposed when carrying goods to the
territory where strikes occur regularly.
In case enterprises are late in
paying fee to shipping firms, they would have to pay the storage fee
additionally. In total, the company would have to pay some 300 dollars in fees
to export or import a 20 feet container.
As such, the company has to pay
288,000 dollars a year, or 24,000 dollars a month in fees alone, if noting that
it imports and exports 80 containers a month.
In many cases, businesses feel as
if they have their pockets picked as they have to pay a lot of unreasonable
fees. Seafood exporters, for example, complain that the management agencies
take samples for testing as a condition for granting export certificate.
Meanwhile, according to the
Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), if every
consignment is examined, enterprises would have to pay 5-15 million dong for
testing fee for every container of seafood exports.
VASEP’s Secretary General Truong
Dinh Hoe has affirmed that the 100 percent examination is not necessary. Hoe
said instead of inspecting every consignment, the watchdog agency should
monitor the production process to help businesses minimize spending.
Meanwhile, enterprises have been
requested to have sample tested in more and more categories, with the fees
between tens of thousands of dong and 600,000-700,000 dong.
Besides the official fees made
public by state management agencies, enterprises also have to pay many other
nameless kinds of fees, especially for advertisements.
For example, in order to obtain
the license to install a billboard, ad firms have to get the nods from some 10
state management agencies. And in order to “go through” the 10 “doors”, they
have to give “envelops” with money inside to the “door security guards.”
Director of an ad firm in HCM
City said that in order to install a billboard (2x2.5 meters) on Le Loi Road in
district 1, enterprises would have to spend 25,000 dollars a year, 50 percent
of which is “unofficial expenses.”
When enterprises have to pay high
input costs, they would set up high sale prices to ensure their profits. As a
result, consumers have to pay high for products, and the demand turns weak
because of the expenses goods.
Vo Tri Thanh, Deputy Head of the
Central Institute for Economic Management CIEM, said the government is
considering all kinds of taxes and fees, and that it is very likely that the
corporate income tax would be lowered first.
Thanh said it would be better to
ease the tax by five percent to 20 percent, and ease the VAT from 10 percent to
7-8 percent.
Compiled by Kim Chi
Business & Investment Opportunities
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