A Ministry of Finance investigation recently uncovered VND 1.441 trillion (USD69.2 million) in embezzled funds in a HCM City Tax Office bank account.
The money, which should have been transferred to the State Treasury, was retained at the District No.1 Tax Office’s temporary account which is primarily used by companies for fines for tax violations, until recently discovered by the General Department of Taxation, which operates under the Ministry of Finance.
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| Enterprises paying taxes to District 1’s branch. |
The General Department of Taxation began the investigation after receiving letters from staff working at the District No.1 Tax Office. It was found that the office had embezzled VND 1.441 trillion in tax and fines from local businesses.
The money had been held in the account over a five year period, accruing tens of billions of dong in interest.
The tax office claimed that companies had accidentally deposited their tax payments into the office account usually reserved for fines and late tax payments, and that additional funds had ended up in the account as State Treasury staff were allegedly unaware of which departmental budget the payments were for, or what agency had levied the tax charges.
The inspectors reported that a number of enterprises had sent their taxes to the office’s temporary account on many occasions, especially during April-July 2011. However the total payments related to these cases only equalled some VND300 billion (USD14.4 million).
However, according to investigators, the sizeable nature of the sum discovered in District No.1’s Tax Office’s account is far too large not to have been noticed.
Inspectors concluded that the office had violated regulations on transferring tax revenues to the state budget.