Tax Department Urges Review of Fuel Companies for Abnormal Transactions Ahead of Price Adjustments

Vietnam’s Tax Department has issued an urgent directive to strengthen tax enforcement in the gasoline and oil trading sector. In Official Dispatch No. 1976/CT-DNL, the department asked provincial tax departments and tax offices of large enterprises to increase checks and penalties for tax violations, with particular attention to electronic invoicing data, revenue, and inventory before and after price adjustments.

Scope and focus of the inspections

The directive sets out that tax authorities will intensify reviews of gasoline and oil sales volumes on days before, during, and after price adjustments—especially periods with larger-than-usual fluctuations. The inspection will cover:

• Tax declarations, value-added tax (VAT) payments, and environmental protection tax
• The creation of electronic invoices for each sale of gasoline and oil

Inspection period and key cross-check items

The inspection period runs from January 2026 through the end of March 2026, a timeframe described as having significant price volatility. Authorities also require cross-checking detailed items, including:

• The number of electronic invoices issued per day, with emphasis on high-volume invoice days
• Reconciliation between accounting books, issued invoices, and actual goods in stock
• Import-export and stock data on a daily or shift basis
• Import-export documents and procedures

Tax authorities will also review transactions showing abnormal signs, such as customers purchasing gasoline in large quantities, the use of transport vehicles and storage facilities, and purchase contracts and delivery terms.

Potential violations and enforcement actions

The directive highlights that authorities will strictly handle cases involving practices such as hoarding or speculation, restricting sales to profit during price fluctuations, issuing invoices at the wrong time or failing to reflect the true nature of transactions, price manipulation, shifting profits between related parties, and failures to issue invoices or incomplete invoice issuance. Depending on the violation, enforcement will follow relevant regulations or be referred to competent authorities.

Timeline for completion and reporting

Checks are required to be completed in April 2026. If a unit cannot complete the work within the timeframe, it must clearly report the reasons. After the inspections, units must report results to the Tax Department, including back taxes, penalties, assessments of common violations in fuel trading, and any difficulties and proposed management solutions.

The Tax Department will also transfer all collected and analyzed data to localities to implement uniform checks nationwide.

Background: price volatility and risk signals

The Tax Department said that from the beginning of 2026 to date, geopolitical developments—particularly the Middle East conflict—have complicated global events and may disrupt crude oil supply. This has contributed to higher global crude oil prices and, in turn, domestic gasoline price fluctuations, with five price adjustments recorded in March 2026.

In this context, the Tax Department warned of potential violations of tax and invoicing laws in gasoline trading and required monitoring and analysis to detect and punish issues promptly.

Electronic invoice data flagged abnormal sales patterns

Through reviews of electronic invoice data, tax authorities identified abnormal signs. In some cases, gasoline and oil volumes sold in the two days before a price adjustment were more than three times the volumes sold in the two days after the price increase. Authorities assessed these fluctuations as high risk for tax management.

Based on these findings, the Tax Department asked units to focus on reviewing and analyzing tax declarations, electronic invoices, sales volumes, revenue, and stock before and after price adjustments to identify high-risk enterprises and conduct surprise inspections.