Circular No. 4016/BTC-TCT on administrative penalties for violations related to invoices and rules for writing numbers and decimal points on invoices.

URGENT

Respectfully submitted to: - Ministries, agencies equivalent to ministries, and government agencies;

              - People's Committees of provinces and centrally governed cities.

In recent times, the Ministry of Finance has received many opinions from units regarding administrative penalties for violations concerning invoices and the application of writing styles and digits on invoices printed directly from sales and accounting software systems using foreign numeral formats. Regarding this matter, the Ministry of Finance has the following opinion:

1. On administrative penalties for violations concerning invoices.

At point a, Clause 2, Article 29 of Decree No. 51/2010/NĐ-CP dated May 14, 2010 of the Government, which stipulates regulations on invoices for goods and services, provides for penalties for violations related to printing invoices as follows:

“2. A fine of VND 2,000,000 to VND 10,000,000 shall be imposed for the following acts:

a) Not terminating the printing contract after issuing the Invoice Issuance Notice; ”

At point a, Clause 2, Article 30 of Decree No. 51/2010/NĐ-CP dated May 14, 2010 of the Government, mentioned above, stipulates penalties for violations related to printing invoices as follows:

“2. A fine of VND 2,000,000 to VND 10,000,000 shall be imposed for the following acts:

a) Not terminating the printing contract when the party printing has completed the procedures for issuing the notice of invoice issuance;”

The provision "not terminating the printing contract" at point a, Clause 2, Article 29 and point a, Clause 2, Article 30 mentioned above is understood as follows:

- If the contract signed between the party printing and the party receiving the print clearly specifies the termination clause, then the contract termination shall be carried out according to the contract.

- If the contract does not specify the termination time, then the contract termination shall be at the end of the contract period.

2. On the application of writing styles and digits on invoices printed directly from sales and accounting software systems using foreign numeral formats.

At Clause 4, Article 4 of Decree No. 51/2010/NĐ-CP dated May 14, 2010 of the Government, which stipulates regulations on invoices for goods and services, it is provided that:

“4. Invoices must be expressed in Vietnamese characters…”.

At point g, Clause 1, Article 4 of Circular No. 153/2010/TT-BTC dated September 28, 2010 of the Ministry of Finance guiding Decree No. 51/2010/NĐ-CP dated May 14, 2010 of the Government on invoices for goods and services, it guides the content on issued invoices: “the total amount is recorded in figures and in words”.

At point k, Clause 1, Article 4 of Circular No. 153/2010/TT-BTC dated September 28, 2010 of the Ministry of Finance mentioned above, it guides:

“k) Invoices must be expressed in Vietnamese. If it is necessary to record additional foreign characters, the foreign characters should be placed in parentheses ( ) to the right or placed immediately below the Vietnamese characters and have a smaller font size than the Vietnamese characters. The digits recorded on the invoice are natural numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; after thousands, millions, billions, trillions, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion digits, a dot (.) must be placed; if there are digits after the unit digit, a comma (,) must be placed after the unit digit.”

Based on the above guidance, in cases where enterprises under multinational groups use accounting software connected with sales software linked to the group's global management system; enterprises, banks, credit institutions use foreign accounting software purchased domestically or abroad that uses commas (,) as digit separators after thousands, millions, billions, trillions, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion digits and periods (.) after the unit digit on accounting documents; the writing on invoices is Vietnamese without tone marks, if modifying the software is difficult to implement, the Ministry of Finance agrees to allow enterprises to choose to use writing in Vietnamese without tone marks and commas (,), periods (.) as digit separators on invoices as described above or in accordance with the guidance in Circular No. 153/2010/TT-BTC dated September 28, 2010 of the Ministry of Finance. The total payment amount on the invoice must be recorded in words. The writing without tone marks on the invoice must ensure that it does not lead to a misinterpretation of the content of the invoice. Before using writing on invoices in Vietnamese without tone marks and digits using commas (,) as digit separators after thousands, millions, billions, trillions, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion digits and periods (.) after the unit digit on invoices, enterprises must register in writing with the tax authority and bear full responsibility for the accuracy of the content of the invoices created according to the registered writing and digit format. The Ministry of Finance assigns the Provincial Tax Departments to inform all enterprises within their province about this and guide enterprises to register in writing with the tax authority to choose to apply writing and digit formats on invoices.

The Ministry of Finance provides its opinion for the knowledge of relevant ministries, agencies equivalent to ministries, government agencies, and People's Committees of provinces and centrally governed cities.