Visitors seem to make little use of VAT refunds which has been launched during the summer in Vietnam due to complicated procedure and a lack of information.
HO CHI MINH CITY- According to VietNamNet news agency, the VAT refund scheme in Vietnam goes almost unnoticed for travellers visiting Vietnam. A report of the Daily Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper indicates that VAT refunds reached only VND 3.11 billion (US$149,000), a modest sum compared to the total number of travellers (over six million per year).The daily highlights that most foreign tourists are unaware of the new VAT refund policy. A group of six foreign tourists staying at five-star hotels in the HCM City told the newspaper that they knew nothing about the policy.
The VAT refund programme was launched in July by the General Department of Customs, with counters set up in HCM City’s Tan Son Nhat and Hanoi’s Noi Bai airports. Foreign tourists who buy goods in tourism areas and shops in major cities will receive a 10 percent refund of the tax they paid.
“We tourists need a list of shops that allow VAT refunds,” said visitor John Chrys Urband of the Philippines. An Australian tourist said he had bought souvenirs that cost up to $100, but the shop owners did not inform him of the VAT-refund policy.
Tran Ngoc Tam, deputy director of HCM City’s Taxation Agency, said the number of shops joining the VAT-refund programme was still very small. Currently, only 100 shops, all in Ho Chi Minh City District 1, have registered to join the programme. The city’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Department plans to work with the taxation agency to ask more shops to join the programme.
Complicated procedures involved in tax declarations have also limited the number of shops that want to join the programme.
Surveys from the Vietnam Administration of Tourism (VNAT) show that foreign visitors in Vietnam stay for an average of nine days and spend about $72 a day.
Vietnam welcomed about 5.35 million international visitors in the first 10 months of this year, up 11.2 per cent over the same period last year, according to the General Statistics Office.
(Source: VietNamNet/VNS)
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
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