The Tax Department of Dong Nai City is strengthening risk management and cross-verification of supply chains through pre-refund tax inspections to prevent fraudulent activities that cause losses to the state budget.

As export activities continue to expand, value-added tax (VAT) refunds not only help businesses improve cash flow and expand production and business operations but also enhance their competitiveness. However, this is also an area vulnerable to abuse for fraudulent claims and budget appropriation. Therefore, the handling of tax refund applications subject to pre-refund inspection and post-inspection refund by the Tax Department of Dong Nai City shows that tax refund management goes beyond comparing documents and invoices; it also requires tracing the flow of goods, cash flow, and every "link" within multi-tier supply chains.

Controlling tax refund applications

In the first six months of 2026, the Tax Department of Dong Nai City received and processed nearly 4,000 tax refund applications, with a total requested refund amount exceeding VND 29.4 trillion. Of these, 83.7% were processed under the refund-first, inspection-later mechanism, while more than 16% fell under the inspection-first, refund-later mechanism (650 applications with requested refunds totaling more than VND 4.5 trillion).

The delegates attended the 2026 Business Dialogue Conference organized by the Tax Department of Dong Nai City.

Assessing tax refund management and risk control over the past period, Mr. Tram Thien An, Head of Tax Inspection Division No. 2 under the Tax Department of Dong Nai City, said that the inspection-first, refund-later mechanism is generally applied to high-risk applications, newly established enterprises, or export tax refund claims involving high-risk commodities. Recently, tax authorities have closely monitored applications in this category to minimize risks.

As of June 25, the Tax Department of Dong Nai City had issued nearly 1,500 VAT refund decisions with a total refunded amount of over VND 11.8 trillion, an increase of 29% compared to the same period in 2025.

Accordingly, the Tax Department has comprehensively applied its risk management system, conducting in-depth analysis of VAT refund applications before approval to identify high-risk cases while clearly defining the responsibilities and processing deadlines for tax officials before inspection decisions are issued. Electronic invoice data is continuously cross-checked to detect discrepancies in taxpayers' declarations. At the same time, the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and supply chain analysis to trace the origin of supply chains has significantly supported the detection of tax refund fraud and suspicious transactions such as invoice trading. In addition, the tax sector carefully reviews and verifies business partners and the legality of input invoices to prevent businesses from being implicated when suppliers abscond or violate the law.

Improving tax refund management efficiency

Although VAT refund management has been implemented comprehensively and achieved encouraging results, Mr. Tram Thien An noted that inspection-first, refund-later procedures still face several challenges. Fraudulent invoice schemes are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with offenders establishing multi-layer "shell companies" across different provinces. By the time tax authorities conduct verification, companies at the final stage of the chain often have disappeared from their registered business addresses, making it difficult to trace the origin of goods. In addition, the strict statutory processing deadlines also create significant pressure on tax authorities.

To ensure tax refund applications are processed within the legal time limits (normally no more than six working days for refund-first applications and 40 working days for inspection-first applications), Mr. Nguyen Toan Thang, Director of the Tax Department of Dong Nai City, said that the tax sector will focus on improving the professional capacity of tax officials through advanced financial statement analysis training programs and data analysis skills using specialized applications.

Mr. Nguyen Toan Thang emphasized that in the remaining months of 2026, the state budget revenue collection task requires the tax sector to continue strengthening discipline and implementing comprehensive measures to fulfill and strive to exceed the assigned state budget revenue target, with at least a 10% increase compared to the 2025 results.

To achieve this objective, the tax sector will continue intensifying efforts to combat tax evasion and tax fraud, strengthen tax administration for e-commerce, the digital economy, real estate transactions, capital transfers, household businesses, and other high-risk sectors. At the same time, it will receive, classify, and process tax refund applications in accordance with legal regulations while promptly addressing feedback and recommendations from citizens and businesses.

In addition, tax sector leaders have instructed all departments and divisions to strictly comply with legal procedures and tax inspection processes. They are also required to develop implementation plans for inspections conducted at tax authority offices and closely review taxpayers' tax declarations, with a particular focus on auditing and inspecting enterprises with high tax and invoice risks.

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Source:Báo Đồng Nai