LEGAL UPDATES VOL 20, OCTOBER 2021

LEGAL UPDATES
VOL 20, OCTOBER 2021

Dear Valued Clients and Partners,

ADK & Co Vietnam Lawyers would like to introduce to you the Legal Updates, Vol 20 of October 2021 with new legal provisions with notable contents as follows:

1. Ministry of Industry and Trade will consider the transition of wind power projects

Accordingly, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has recently received many documents from provinces and organizations proposing to extend the time limit for applying the fixed electricity price mechanism in Decision 39/2018/QD-TTg of Prime Minister because the Covid-19 epidemic has affected the construction investment progress and delayed the project's time of operation after October 31, 2021 - which is the time limit for application of fixed electricity prices (8.5 UScent/kWh for onshore wind power and 9.8 Uscent/kWh for offshore wind power).

Specifically, the progress of supplying turbines is slow, the construction time is long (due to the lack of employees), the inspection and testing activities are interrupted, the import of goods and the entry of experts has been dragged down (due to the requirements of distance, isolation and disease prevention).

Hence, provinces and organizations have proposed to extend the time limit for applying the fixed electricity price mechanism in Decision 39 with different proposed durations (from 2 months to more than 1 year).

The Ministry of Industry and Trade will consider transitioning wind power projects, including those in progress, but not yet put into operation before November 1, 2021.

2. Amending, supplementing a number of article on current Decree on e-commerce activities

The Government has recently issued Decree No. 85/2021/ND-CP amending, supplementing a number of article of Decree No. 52/2013/ND-CP dated in May 16, 2013 on E-Commerce. This Decree will take effect from January 1, 2022.

In accordance with new regulations, for goods or services introduced on sales e-commerce website, traders, organizations or individuals will provide information so that customers can correctly identify features of goods or services in order to avoid misunderstanding when deciding to make a proposal for conclusion of contract as follow:

(i) Information about goods published on website must include compulsory contents shown on the goods label in accordance with laws on goods labels, except the information with special features of products such as: year, month, date of manufacture; expiry; production batch number; the frame number, the machine number.

(ii) Seller of goods or services satisfy the conditions of investment and business on the list of conditional investment and business lines must publish the number, date and place of issuance of permits, certificates of eligibility, written certifications, or other forms of documents according to the provisions of law on business conditions of that industry or profession

In addition, the Decree supplement the obligations of traders, organizations providing e-commerce trading floor services with the function of ordering goods online besides such obligations above:

(i) Appointing the receiver to get and provide online information within 24 hours from the time of receiving the requirements about subjects having the law breach sign to State bodies for examining, inspecting, handling violations in e-commerce activities and settling such complaints and denunciations;

(ii) Representing the foreign sellers on the e-commerce trading floor to settle complaints and denunciations of consumers related to goods and services provided by the foreign traders and have obligations to notify the foreign sellers’ tax duty when participating in e-commerce trading floor under the Vietnamese laws;

(iii) Being the receiver to get and settle consumers’ complaints in the case of a transaction performed on the e-commerce trading floor having more than 2 parties involved;

(iv) Storing the information about order transactions made on the e-commerce trading floor according to the provisions of law on accounting;

(v) Jointly compensate for damage in case of breach of obligations stipulated in Clauses 8, 9 of Article 36, causing damage

3. Circular 78/2021/TT-BTC on e-invoices and Ho Chi Minh City will apply new e-invoices from November 1, 2021

On September 17, 2021, Minister of Finance issued Circular 78/2021/TT-BTC guidance on implementing a number article of Law on Tax Administration, Decree 123/2020/ND-CP prescribing invoices and records. This Circular will take effect on July 1, 2022.

Accordingly, this Circular encourages authorities, organizations and individuals satisfying IT infrastructure conditions to apply regulations on e-invoices and records as guided in Circular 78/2021/TT- BTC and Decree 123/2020/ND-CP before July 1, 2022.

E-invoices will be applied to household and individual businesses from July 01, 2022

Except the cases stipulated in Clause 1 Article 14 Decree 123/2020/ND-CP do not have electronic transactions with tax authorities, IT infrastructure, accounting software systems or e-invoicing software functioning as the tools of using e-invoices and transmitting e-invoice data to buyers and tax authorities, using physical invoices of tax authorities for up to 12 months, at the same time, the tax authority has a solution to gradually switch to applying electronic invoices. The maximum period of 12 months is counted once from July 1, 2022 for household and individual businesses that have been operating before July 1, 2022; or from the starting date of registration for using invoices of household and individual businesses newly established from July 1, 2022.

Notably, from November 1, 2021, Ho Chi Minh City will be one of the first six provinces to apply e-invoices in accordance with these new regulations. Department of Taxation of Ho Chi Minh City will notify the conducting time to implement the new e-invoice regulations for businesses, economic organizations, household and individual businesses in the area currently using e-invoices according to the law

We hope you found this brief legal update informative.

Kind regards.

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