Tax authority reports violations by Bao Tin Minh Chau

This afternoon (April 9), at the Ministry of Finance’s Q1 regular press conference, Mr. Le Long, Deputy Director of the Tax Department, said that enterprises using two parallel accounting systems—one to track actual production and business activities and another to provide data to competent state management agencies—constitute a serious violation of the law.

Nature of the violation and potential harm

Mr. Le Long said the practice is intended to evade taxes or to commit fraud in the preparation and issuance of financial statements for malicious purposes, including participating in bidding or borrowing from banks. He noted that it reflects weak social responsibility among business owners.

Beyond reducing state budget revenue, the Tax Department warned that the practice can have long-term effects on the economy and the business environment. Authorities are also concerned it may become systemic, highly sophisticated, and difficult to detect without specialized inspection or investigative capabilities.

Recent major cases

Authorities cited recent cases uncovered by law enforcement:

• Hoang Long Construction and Human Resources Supply Joint Stock Company: maintained two sets of accounting records and kept some outside ledgers to conceal revenue, resulting in more than 241 billion VND in tax losses to the state.
• Bao Tin Minh Chau Co., Ltd: used two software systems to manage and declare tax reports, causing approximately 150 billion VND in losses.

The Tax Department said these cases illustrate the growing scale and seriousness of the offense.

Reasons cited by the Tax Department

Leaders of the Tax Department identified several contributing factors behind such violations:

• Limited awareness of legal compliance and business ethics.
• A drive to maximize profits and minimize tax obligations.
• Limited recognition of criminal risks or willingness to trade them off.
• When committing violations, firms believe the acts are easy to conceal and hard to detect.

New data collection and oversight measures

To address the use of dual accounting ledgers, the Tax Department has required providers of electronic invoicing services to compile lists of all customers using accounting software as of March 31.

By April 7, Mr. Le Long said lists from 42 organizations had been received, including 12,809 customers using accounting software. Authorities said they will continue coordinating with organizations to compile nationwide information.

The tax authority said it will use the collected data to review, issue warnings, and make recommendations to organizations, enterprises, and business households that use multiple accounting ledgers starting from April.

Prevention and risk detection approach

To prevent dual-ledger practices used for fraud, the Tax Department said it will strengthen cash-flow controls, reduce cash usage, connect data between the tax authority and the banking system, and monitor large-value transactions through accounts.

It also said it will use big data and artificial intelligence to analyze risk and detect signs of dual accounting systems through unusual revenue movements or abnormally low profit margins, shifting management from manual inspections to data-driven oversight.

With strengthened management of electronic invoicing and accounting software risk, the Tax Department said it will continue requiring real-time data connections between sales data and the tax authority for high-risk sectors, and urged software providers to supply lists of customers for monitoring the use of multiple accounting software.

According to Viet Linh, Tiền Phong