Property firms in Ho Chi Minh City owe large tax arrears

Real estate enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City now owe huge tax arrears with many of them incurring bills of over VND1 trillion (US$42 million) each, according to the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department. The department’s newly-released data showed that tax arrears in Ho Chi Minh City reached VND53 trillion ($2.2 billion) as of June this year, up 16.6 percent over the end of last year. The tax arrears of Golden Hill Investment Corporation and Song Tien Real Estate Corporation reached VND1.3 trillion ($54.6 million) and VND1 trillion ($42 million), respectively. The Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department issued nearly 45,500 decisions to coerce tax debtors to pay tax arrears and collected over VND12.7 trillion ($533.1 million) in the first half of this year, equal to 94 percent of the figure in the same period last year. The Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department attributed the increasing tax arrears to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lasting from previous years and the economic downturn.