Vietnam: Habeco asked to pay US$81 in tax liabilities

The State Audit of Viet Nam (SAV) has proposed that the Ha Noi Beer Alcohol and Beverage JSC (Habeco) pay the State budget VND1.85 trillion (US$81 million) in tax liabilities, the Viet Nam News reported on May 8.

The move came after the SAV examined financial statements and activities related to the management and use of capital and assets in 2016 at Habeco and its affiliates.

SAV pointed out a series of errors, violations of the administration and use of State capital of Habeco in 2016.

The total VND1.85 trillion tax arrears that Habeco has to pay includes VND4.5 billion in value added tax, more than VND441 billion in excise tax, over VND9 billion in corporate income tax, VND381 million in personal income tax and nearly VND1.3 trillion in other liabilities.

The company was also told to reduce the state budget receivables to nearly VND5.8 billion.

According to the SAV, Habeco parent company’s expenditure on programmes and events in 2016 had exceeded the initial plan by VND4.7 billion.

It added that in 2016, the parent company held 30 overseas business trips. However, 24 trips had unclarified programmes and 19 had incomplete legal procedures and unclear results.

Regarding the parent company’s beer purchase price policy for subsidiaries, the SAV pointed out there was no relation between the purchase prices and the producers’ profits. The determination of the beer purchase prices were all calculated by the prices of the previous year adjusted following the tax-related factors or the output prices.

SAV also stated that the interests Habeco’s shareholders were negatively affected due to the parent company’s misusing and mismanaging the state capital.

It said the parent company had a large bank deposit but it had yet made an overall reasoned assessment on the credit institutions to select those with competitive interest rates.

Habeco completed eight licensing agreements with eight companies under its system in 2016, with contracted production of 68.5 million litres of beer. These agreements required that the eight companies had to sell beer at higher prices than Habeco.

However, Habeco had not examined those companies’ selling activities, leading to big differences between the selling prices they reported and the actual selling prices. And no violations were detected and handled in accordance with the contracts.

According to Sabeco’s audited financial report, Habeco’s parent company’s revenue in 2016 reached nearly VND7.7 trillion, up 12.3 per cent against 2015. Of this, revenue from the sale of beer was VND6.6 trillion and revenue from the sale of raw materials was more than VND1 trillion. Habeco’s equity as of December 31, 2016 was VND4.3 trillion.