Tax officials have uncovered 100.33 billion kip in unpaid taxes as at April 24, 2013 following their routine inspection over the past year.
The amount was not paid by 170 business units, the Lao News Agency reported, citing a report presented at a recent nationwide financial inspection meeting.
Many provinces have also reported that they failed to collect taxes from all businesses operating there, while some provinces did not deliver revenue they collected into the national treasury in accordance with financial regulations.
The findings came after the Inspection Department under the Finance Ministry and its local authorities launched their routine inspection on revenue collection over the past year.
Director General of the department Mr Sila Viengkeo told the Vientiane Times yesterday that there are several reasons behind why the businesses have not paid their taxes.
These include the fact that the government has not paid construction companies who put prior investment into the development of state infrastructure projects so that they do not have money to pay taxes.
“All that we have inspected and found doesn't mean that the businesses were in breach of the law without reasons,” he said.
In some cases, businesses are encountering financial difficulties and asked for postponement of tax payment. In this case, compromise could be given if it was proven that businesses faced difficulties, according to the director.
But he warned those businesses that did not pay the tax without justifiable reasons could have measures taken against them.
Over the past year, the officials also inspected revenue collection-related issues of various provinces including the capital of Vientiane and the provinces of Vientiane, Phongsaly, Oudomxay, Luang Prabang, Xekong, and Attapeu.
It was found that Xekong did not hand over several billion kip in taxes it collected into the national treasury in accordance with financial regulations.
The officials also found that Oudomxay provincial authorities have failed to collect taxes from all business sources in the province.
The Inspection Department explained that this happened due to the fact that revenue collected by the province exceeded target so that the authorities paid less attention to other collections, according to the Lao News Agency.
The inspection also discovered that Phongsaly province holds two accounts – one in a bank and one in the national treasury but the province's available balance showed a difference of 130 million kip between the two.
In addition, the province did not deliver one billion kip of revenue collected into the national treasury.
Some 966 million kip of the budget transferred to Champassak province for road maintenance was embezzled by officials, the report said.
The inspection department said the embezzled money will be recovered, but it did not give further details of measures to be taken to punish the officials involved.
