Vietnam presents VAT compliance simplification Bill

The Vietnamese Ministry of Finance has proposed changes to the Vietnam VAT law.  The principle changes include:

• companies will be able to submit input VAT suffered on expenditure dating back up to 12 months.  This compares to the current time of only 6 months.
• in addition to the above, the annual threshold for deducting input VAT is to be raised to VND 500m for refunds
• new exemptions for health and personal insurance costs for sole traders
• a new basis for the calculation for the liability to charge VAT for small businesses

The draft bill will not be implemented until 2014, subject to the approval of Parliament.