Laos announced conditions for tax certificates

On 9 January 2020, the Ministry of Finance issued Notice No. 0031/CO (the “Notice”) to announce the necessary formalities for business entities to obtain their Tax Payment Certificates for the year 2019.

Per the Notice, all business entities registered in the Lao PDR must submit their FY2019 financial statements along with the documents listed below to the tax and accounting authorities where they are registered by 31 March 2020:

1	Application form to request the FY2019 Tax Payment Certificate	1 set
2	Annual financial statements for FY2019 (prepared in accordance with Lao Accounting Standards) and their supporting documents, including fixed asset and inventory checklists, and bank statements of all accounts)	3 sets
3	Taxation profit	1 set
4	Table with summary of all tax payment declarations	1 set
5	Tax payment receipts from other provinces	1 set
6	Business revenue and tax payment plan for FY2020	1 set

Importantly, the application and the supporting documents must be completed in accordance with the Notice as detailed above or it will not be considered.

Additionally, copies of two sets of the financial statements must be submitted together with the following documents to the accounting authorities to obtain the accounting maintenance certificate for FY2019:

• Trial balance
• Fixed asset list and annual depreciation schedule
• Annual tax payment summary

If you have any questions or require assistance with these submissions, please contact the undersigned, or your usual VDB Loi adviser.