On December 20, 2013, the Ministry of Finance promulgated Circular No. 201/2013/TT-BTC guiding the application of Advance Pricing Agreements to Tax Administration.
According to the Circular, the taxpayer shall decide whether the APA is unilateral, bilateral, or multilateral when submitting the APA application. While the APA application is processed, the tax administration and the taxpayer may convert the bilateral or multilateral APA into a unilateral APA, and vice versa.
The cases in which APAs may be converted: The foreign tax administration does not participate in the APA negotiation; the Vietnamese tax administration and the foreign tax administration fail to reach an agreement on the APA contents after a conventional negotiation period. Competent officials of the Vietnamese tax administration and the foreign tax administration mutually agree to convert the unilateral APA into a bilateral or multilateral APA on the taxpayer’s approval while exchanging information or following mutual agreement procedures under the tax treaty.
This Circular takes effect on February 5, 2014
