Nearly 95,000 Businesses Deregistered in Vietnam in 8 Months, Doubling Last Year's Pace

In the first eight months of this year, nearly 95,000 businesses and organizations in Vietnam completed tax code deregistration, a figure that has doubled compared to the same period last year. However, the majority of these cases involved backlogged applications from previous years, indicating a more limited actual withdrawal from the market. Tax authorities are intensifying efforts to clean up business registration data and prevent fraud. In a press conference on September 4, the General Department of Taxation under the Ministry of Finance announced that approximately 95,000 businesses and organizations had completed their tax code deregistration procedures from January to August this year. This represents a twofold increase compared to the same period in the previous year. Mai Son, Deputy Director of the General Department of Taxation, explained that out of this total, just over 23,000 were newly generated cases this year. The remaining nearly 72,000 cases were backlogged from 2025 and earlier, which were processed as part of the tax sector's data cleanup campaign. Son clarified that the significant increase in units leaving the tax system does not necessarily mean a proportional rise in the actual number of businesses withdrawing from the market. This result is partly attributed to the processing of outstanding applications and the updating of taxpayers' legal status. Furthermore, the recent reorganization of administrative units at the district and commune levels has also influenced this fluctuation. During the same period, the tax sector issued new tax codes to 167,637 businesses and organizations, representing 89% of the figure from the same period last year. The number of newly registered businesses is 6.8 times higher than the number of units that completed tax code deregistration, surpassing last year's ratio of 4.5 times. In recent times, many business owners, particularly those of small and medium-sized enterprises, have experienced significant distress over the procedures for dissolving their companies after years of inactivity. In response to the difficulties faced by businesses, the General Department of Taxation stated that it is reviewing policy-related issues, tax obligations, and penalties to propose suitable solutions. This initiative aims to help businesses promptly fulfill their fiscal obligations, either by resuming operations or by terminating their activities in accordance with regulations. Tax authorities have identified the core focus of the current tax code cleanup campaign as the processing of enterprises that have ceased operations but have not completed their tax procedures, or those no longer operating at their registered addresses. Specifically, Nguyen Quang Huy, Deputy Head of the Tax Operations Department at the General Department of Taxation, stated that the agency is collaborating with the Police Department for Administrative Management of Social Order (C06) to verify and standardize the identity information of legal representatives of these businesses. Concurrently, the tax sector will standardize information regarding addresses, legal representatives, and owners to limit prolonged dissolution procedures and prevent the establishment of "ghost companies" for invoice fraud and tax evasion. For individuals whose identities have been misused or illegally used to establish businesses, the approach will be to protect the victims and clearly delineate their responsibilities from the financial obligations of the impersonated companies. "For businesses wishing to continue operating, the tax authorities will support them in resolving outstanding issues to restore their legal status," said Mai Son. Source: VnExpress