HÀ NỘI — The Department of Taxation has launched a nationwide campaign to clean up tax identification data and accelerate business closure procedures as part of efforts to improve the business environment and strengthen tax administration amid Việt Nam’s ongoing digital transformation.

Titled "Cleaning Tax Codes – Removing Business Bottlenecks", the campaign will be rolled out across the tax system throughout 2026 with the aim of reducing the number of inactive taxpayers that have suspended operations or ceased trading at registered addresses without completing procedures to terminate their tax codes.

According to the tax department, a large volume of unresolved cases has increased pressure on the tax management system, prolonged administrative procedures and affected the transparency of the business environment.

The programme is designed to ease compliance for legitimate taxpayers while helping to prevent high-risk cases involving tax fraud, invoice trading and other violations, as well as improving the overall management of tax data, the department said.

The department aims to review and update information for at least 80 per cent of taxpayers, including legal representatives and contact details, while all outstanding files in the tax management system will be re-examined to remove those that have already been resolved or no longer exist in practice.

For businesses that have suspended operations without completing tax closure procedures, the tax authority targets resolving at least 35 per cent of pending cases recorded as of March 31, by the end of this year, prioritising companies with no revenue, no invoices or cases pending for more than 12 months.

The tax department will also review all businesses that issued electronic invoices but failed to file tax declarations and classify them into groups based on risk levels.

The tax sector aims to reduce the average processing time for dissolution and business termination procedures to no more than four months for eligible cases from the second quarter of 2026.

The campaign will be implemented in three phases through the end of 2026, beginning with data reviews and preparation, followed by processing simple and long-pending cases before focusing on complex and high-risk files in the final stage. — BIZHUB/VNS