Circular No. 96/2015/TT-BTC dated June 22nd, 2015 of the Ministry of Finance guiding on enterprise income tax in the Government’s Decree No. 12/2015/ND-CP dated February 12th, 2015 detailing the implementation of the Law on amendments, supplements to a number of articles of tax Laws and amendments, supplements to a number of articles of tax Decrees and amending supplementing to a number of articles of Circular No. 78/2014/TT-BTC dated June 18th, 2014, Circular No. 119/2014/TT-BTC dated August 25th, 2014 and Circular No. 151/2014/TT-BTC dated October 10th, 2014

This Circular is to amend, supplement to a number of provisions on enterprise income tax (EIT) provided in Circular No. 78/2014/TT-BTC , Circular No. 119/2014/TT-BTC , and Circular No. 151/2014/TT-BTC

Accordingly, there are noticeable points provided in this Circular as follows:

- Incomes from projects of investment outside Vietnam are allowable to be declared in the EIT finalization of the year when the incomes are transferred to Vietnam instead of being declared in tax finalization of the year following the fiscal year when the incomes are generated (Article 1, Article 4).

- Profits earned, losses suffered from projects of investment outside Vietnam are not allowed to be offset against domestic losses, profits (Article 1).

- Incomes from services must only be declared and pay EIT at the time of completing the service provision or completing parts of the service provision, regardless of invoices have been already made earlier (Article 3).

- Some fixed assets are deducted when determining EIT, including: libraries, kindergartens, sport areas (including internal equipment, furniture); material facilities, machinery, equipment reserved for occupational education activities (Article 4).

- Other allowances of mission-trip expenses are also accounted according to actual amount stated in invoices, receipts similarly to travelling expenses, accommodation costs instead of being subject to any limited norm (Article 4).

- Invoices, receipts of mission-trip expenses made payment via banking cards of individuals are also regarded as meeting the requirements of via-bank payment, provided that they are specified in regulations on finance or internal regulations of enterprises (Article 4).

- If an enterprise has already contributes sufficient charted capital, expenses of interest on loans for investing in other enterprises shall be also deducted (Article 4).

- Expenditures on occupational education activities, vocational training shall be accounted into reasonable expenses and shall not be subject to any limited norm (Article 4).

- Enterprises are allowed to transfer their first tax period that is eligible for EIT incentives to the next tax year if the former is under 12 months (Clause 5 Article 10).

This Circular takes effect from August 6th, 2015 and applies to EIT periods from 2015 onwards.

Point 2.21 Clause 2 Article 6, Clause 5 Article 20 of Circular No. 78/2014/TT-BTC and the contents guiding on EIT promulgated by the Ministry of Finance and branches that are not appropriate to this Circular shall be annulled.