News (12)

Ministry of Commerce has issued a new Prakas No. 107 MOC/SM on “Filing of Annual Declaration of Commercial Enterprise” on 05th April, 2017 and at the same time nulled Prakas No. 104 MOC/SM dated on 07th April, 2008.

Since the registration system has been available to conduct online, filing annual declaration of Commercial Enterprise is too available and required to file online. All commercial enterprises will be sent a notice to file their annual declaration in the eleventh month and are required to start filing them including other references in the twelfth month counted from the date of their commercial registrations through online system. The duration for filing is provided for three months following from the beginning date of the abovementioned twelfth month
 
In case any commercial enterprise fail to comply with this prakas to file the annual declaration, they will be imposed under penalties set force in the laws and this Prakas. The sole Prakas will penalize 1 Million Riels for such failure.

The Prakas has indicated some particular information to be filled in the online system for all commercial enterprise including Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), Tax Registration Date, Patent Certificate in the year of filing the annual declaration, number of employees including referenced documents specified on their duties, currently used phone numbers and email addresses of the company. It is, however, important to note that except Public Limited Company is required to submit other additional informations to the above listed which include financial statement and the company’s owner record.

On March 20th, Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia (SECC) issued an announcement to inform the public that SECC temporally stop accepting application for licensing a New Central Counterparty License to Derivatives Trading Firms. Notwithstanding, SECC still encourage persons who want to be a Derivative Brokerage firm and unlicensed Derivative Brokerage firm promptly apply the application. Those who are unlicensed Derivative Brokerage firms failed to get the license from SECC are warned to faced legal action.

For the public information, SECC listed the current four licensed Central Counterparty companies and six licensed Brokerage.

In the same announcement, SECC added that it will carry on accepting the application for licensing a New Central Counterparty License to Derivatives Trading Firms in the future with the date will be specified in another announcement.

On 22nd January 2017, General Department of Taxation announced (GDT) for a “Tax Amnesty” for the registered taxpayers who failed to pay and those who failed to declare the tax up to three years from the filing date. The amnesty, however, will only exempt the tax penalty for the aforementioned failings. Since the penalties are imposed in series as from 10, 25 or 40 percent which is quite significant, the amnesty tend to encourage the taxpayers to pay theirs owed tax by exempting such penalties. This exception will only officially announce and enter into force by GDT this early April.

In addition to the penalties exemption, there is another sub-decree signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen and dated early of February 2017 to exempt tax on profit for Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This exemption intends to push up the SMEs to voluntarily and formally register their businesses tax in GDT as the condition to be exempted. The period of tax on profit exemption will last for “Two Years” till the end of 2018.

Despite there are some incentive tax policies, it is important to note that the “Tax Code Amendment” through 2017 law on financial management appeared to strengthen the tax system. The amendment was seen to provide a clearer authority for “GDT Auditors” to intensively audit on the distinction between the bank statement and the tax returns. The empowerment of such authority is to prevent taxpayer avoiding on provide a full information. GDT authorities now have power to directly request to the bank to provide the bank statement of the taxpayer being audited.