Sabeco urged to pay $109.8 million tax arrears

Sabeco urged to pay $109.8 million in tax arrears

The requirement is based on Article 7 of the Law on State Audit, which deals with the legal validity of audit reports. Accordingly, audit reports made by the State Audit Office of Vietnam (SAV) are binding upon audited units after they are published in terms of management and use of public finance and/or public property.

MoF required the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) to assign a representative for the state-owned stake in Sabeco to solve these violations and complete the payment of $109.8 million according to SAV’s requirment. MoIT and Sabeco will have to submit a report about the implementation of MoF’s requirements to the ministry before April 30.

Earlier in mid-March, after an inspection at Sabeco, SAV submitted a report to MoIT, stating that as of December 31, 2016, Sabeco held more than VND2.8 trillion ($122.99 million) in profit after which it had not declared tax.

In the first quarter of 2017, VND76 billion ($3.33 million) of this VND2.8 trillion ($122.99 million) was divided among several funds. Thus, the remaining undeclared profit of Sabeco was more than VND2.7 trillion ($118.6 million).

As 89.59 per cent of Sabeco was owned by the state before selling 53 per cent of this to Thai Beverage, the state audit proposed MoIT to collect VND2.5 trillion ($109.8 million) to the state budget.

According to the latest development, Sabeco has released a document to explain the 2017 business results as well as the VND78.7 billion ($3.45 million) difference in the after-tax profit figures in its audited and initial financial statements.

Notably, according to the audited financial statement, in 2017 Sabeco acquired an after-tax profit of VND4.562 trillion ($200.01 million), VND78.7 billion ($3.45 million) or 2 per cent less than the VND4.641 trillion ($203.46 million) in the previous financial statements.

Besides, the expenditure for managing the operations of the firm increased by 8 per cent to VND25.93 billion ($1.13 million).

According to the audited financial statement, as of December 31, 2016, the money that Sabeco has to pay to the state budget increased by VND163.87 billion ($7.18 million) compared to the initial figure, almost all of which comes from corporate income tax.

According to SAV, the special consumption tax that Sabeco paid in 2007-2009 would not be deducted from the 2016 corporate income because previously MoF asked Sabeco to use the profit from 2015 onwards (which has yet to be divided among shareholders) to pay for 2007-2009 special consumption tax.