THE GOVERNMENT -------	SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIET NAM Independence - Freedom - Happiness ----------
No. 164/2003/ND-CP	Hanoi, December 22, 2003

DECREE

DETAILING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LAW ON ENTERPRISE INCOME TAX

THE GOVERNMENT

Pursuant to the December 25, 2001 Law on Organization of the Government;

Pursuant to the June 17, 2003 Law No. 09/2003/QH11 on Enterprise Income Tax;

At the proposal of the Minister of Finance,

DECREES:

Chapter I

APPLICATION SCOPE OF ENTERPRISE INCOME TAX

Article 1.- Organizations and individuals engaged in goods production and trading and/or service provision (hereinafter referred collectively to as business establishments) with incomes shall have to pay enterprise income tax according to the provisions in this Decree.

1. Organizations engaged in goods production and trading and/or service provision, including: State enterprises; limited liability companies; joint-stock companies; partnerships; foreign-invested enterprises and foreign parties to business cooperation contracts under the Law on Foreign Investment in Vietnam; foreign companies and organizations doing business in Vietnam not under the Law on Foreign Investment in Vietnam; private enterprises; cooperatives; cooperation groups; economic organizations of political organizations, socio-political organizations, social organizations, socio-professional organizations or people’s armed force units; administrative agencies and non-business units engaged in goods production and/or trading and/or service provision.

2. Vietnamese individuals engaged in goods production and/or trading and/or service provision, including:

a/ Business individuals and groups of business individuals;

b/ Individual business households;

c/ Independent professional practitioners: medical doctors, lawyers, accountants, auditors, painters, architects, musicians, and others;

d/ Individuals leasing such properties as houses, land, transport means, machinery and equipment or other kinds of property;

3. Foreign individuals doing business and having incomes generated in Vietnam, regardless of whether their business activities are carried out in Vietnam or in foreign countries.

4. Foreign companies doing business through their resident establishments in Vietnam.

Resident establishments are business establishments through which foreign companies conduct part or all of their income-generating business activities in Vietnam. Foreign companies’ resident establishments mainly take the following forms:

a/ Branches, executive offices, factories, workshops, goods-forwarding warehouses, transport means, mines, oil or gas fields or natural resource- exploring and -exploiting sites or equipment and facilities in service of natural resource exploration;

b/ Construction sites; construction, installation and/or assembly projects; activities of construction supervision as well as construction, installation and/or assembly projects;

c/ Establishments providing services, including consultancy services provided by their employees or other subjects;

d/ Agents of foreign companies;

e/ Vietnam-based representatives in cases where:

- They are competent to sign contracts on behalf of foreign companies;

- They are not competent to sign contracts on behalf of foreign companies but regularly perform the delivery of goods or the provision of services in Vietnam.

In cases where a double taxation avoidance agreement which the Socialist Republic in Vietnam has signed otherwise provides for resident establishments, the provisions of such agreement shall apply.