Sellers issue invoices at the wrong time will be subject to administrative penalties. So is it acceptable for a buyer to receive an invoice at the wrong time?

Legal grounds:

• Circular No. 96/2015/TT-BTC;
• Decree No. 125/2020/ND-CP;
• Official Dispatch No. 2731/TCT-CS dated June 20, 2016 of the General Department of Taxation.

We receive the following questions:

My company purchases goods from a supplier. According to the agreement, the seller will issue invoices for each delivery, then the buyer will pay. However, usually in the last batch, the supplier usually waits for my company to pay before issuing an invoice, but this time my company had difficulty paying late, so the supplier has not yet issued an invoice so that our side can store it. So if they are late in issuing invoices, will we be able to calculate the costs and be fined?

Pursuant to Article 4 of Circular No. 96/2015/TT-BTC, expenses that meet the following 3 conditions will be included in deductible expenses when determining corporate income tax:

• Actual expenses incurred related to business activities of the enterprise;
• Expenses have enough legal invoices and documents according to the provisions of law;
• Expenditures if there are invoices for each purchase of goods and services costing from 20 million VND or more (price includes VAT) must have non-cash payment documents when paying.

Therefore, even though the seller issues the invoice at the wrong time, if the purchase and sale of goods between the two parties meets the 3 conditions mentioned above, the buyer can still count the cost of purchasing the goods as deductible expenses when determining corporate income tax.

In principle, the seller is obliged to issue an invoice on time and the buyer is not responsible for this. Therefore, the seller’s violation of regulations on making sales invoices and being administratively sanctioned according to Decree No. 125/2020/ND-CP does not affect the buyer’s rights.

In addition, Official Dispatch No. 2731/TCT-CS dated June 20, 2016 of the General Department of Taxation has the following instructions:

In case the Company … purchased main raw materials from the supplier in January 2016 to serve production and business, but the supplier did not issue an invoice when delivering the raw materials in January 2016, but the invoice was issued in February 2016. The Company has records and documents: price quotes, contracts and handover records in January 2016, so it requests the Ha Nam Provincial Tax Department to physically inspect the Company’s goods purchase and sale to have a chance to instruct the Company to include deductible expenses when determining income subject to corporate income tax for the above invoices if they meet the prescribed conditions and coordinate with the tax authority managing the supplier to impose penalties administrative violations for making invoices at the wrong time.

Therefore, if the seller issues the invoice at the wrong time:

• The buyer is not subject to administrative sanctions;
• The buyer can include costs when calculating corporate income tax and declaring input VAT deduction if all conditions are met according to the law.