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GDT urges banks to solve technical tax payment issues

Kang Sothear / Khmer Times Share:
Advanced Bank of Asia (ABA) in Phnom Penh. The GDT signed MoUs with 10 banks including ABA urging them to solve technical issues in the tax payment systems in the country. KT/Pann Rachana

The General Department of Taxation (GDT) of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) has urged ten banks that cooperated with the internal tax authority to solve technical issues in the tax payment systems, according to a press release issued by GDT.

The release pointed out that the MEF has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ten banks in Cambodia including Canadia Bank, Acleda Bank, Cambodian Public Bank, Vattanac Bank, J Trust Royal Bank, Cambodia Post Bank, Foreign Trade Bank, Sathapana Bank, Advanced Bank of Asia and Wing Bank (Cambodia) to offer tax payment to taxpayers.

The encouragement was expressed during both in-person held on Thursday last week at GDT headquarters and an online meeting between tax officials led by GDT’s Deputy Director General Ken Sambath and representatives of the participating banks to review and enhance the implementation of
the MoUs.

“The deputy director general also urged and encouraged the participating commercial banks to continue cooperation with the taxation general department to solve technical issues regarding receiving tax payments in time and expedite modernising information technology to mediate with the systems of the taxation general department,” the release said.

During the meeting, Sambath said that tax payment through banking systems is the mechanism that enables taxable persons to file their tax returns and make the payment easily through information technology systems E-Filing and E-Payment from their homes or offices or any other places where the internet is available without visiting tax officials or bank staff at branches.

“The review of the update of the deal implementation is to discuss solutions to technical issues and others in order to assure sustainability, efficiency and effectiveness in providing tax payment services,” said Sambath, who also urged the participating commercial banks to enhance efficiency in the tax payment services to taxpayers to promote tax compliance.

Khun Darith, Managing Partner of audit, accounting and tax solutions at accountancy and auditing firm K Professional Accountants (KPA), told Khmer Times yesterday that Foreign Trade Bank and Wing Bank (Cambodia) were the banks that MEF signed MoUs following the other eight commercial banks in Cambodia, but he did not remember the date their participations.

Darith pointed out that a majority of the participating commercial banks have not developed E-payment systems to provide online tax payment services to taxpayers and the tax payment systems of those banks are not compatible with the E-payment system developed GDT, which has not been efficient enough for taxpayers and requires the manual practice of the tax payment.

“Those banks have been urged to solve this issue by investing in creating the e-payment system so that their customers can make payment of taxes through e-filing system from their homes, offices or other places without going to the banks or tax offices,” said Darith, adding that Wing Bank (Cambodia) started the tax payment services after Foreign Trade Bank.

GDT has changed its instruction on implementing the value-added tax (VAT) on e-commerce transactions for taxable persons who are non-resident taxpayers including electronic platform operators, who do not have permanent establishments in Cambodia.

Non-resident taxpayers who do not have permanent establishments in Cambodia but supply digital goods or services or any e-commerce activity from the rest of the world to the resident persons who are enterprise taxpayers in the self-assessment taxpayer or/and physical persons in the country are obliged to implement the revised rules.

According to the statement released on Thursday last week, non-resident taxpayers who have transactions only with subsidiaries or branches in Cambodia are not obliged to apply for simplified VAT registration, but the subsidiaries or branches in the self-assessment taxpayers are required to send notifications to Cambodia’s internal tax authority GDT.

Self-assessment taxpayers who perform business-to-business transactions and already file monthly tax returns are allowed to revise value-added tax amount by using credit note issued by the non-resident taxpayers for the revision. However, the credit incurred by the revision would be settled with the reverse charge method only, according to GDT’s statement.

Director General of GDT Kong Vibol Vibol said the new target for 2023 which will be about $752.16 million higher than in 2022 would probably be very tough for the internal tax authority to achieve. “I am committed and do my best in completing the mission to collect the tax revenue unwaveringly … to further fully support the implementation of the government’s policies,” he said.

 

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