Under Decision 520/QĐ-BTC issued recently, this year’s restructuring is among a ministry’s rearrangement plan to trim down at least 50 percent of the current tax agencies from now to 2020.In the following year, the ministry will work to rearrange 53 district-level tax departments into 25 subdivisions, which means 28 tax departments will be dissolved.
Tax agencies in Vietnam will drop sharply by a half by 2020
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According to the ministry, the restructuring and merge will help to streamline the tax agencies while still ensuring its efficiency and meeting assigned tasks.
The rearrangement will be conducted among district tax departments in the same province or centrally-run city, with due attention paid to special circumstances such as the importance of location (border and island areas) and the need to attract investment. The rearrangement must ensure economic security and national sovereignty, create favorable conditions to attract investment and bolster local socio-economic development.
To implement Decision 520/QD-BTC, the General Department of Taxation has issued Decision 849/QD-TCT approving the plan to merge district-level tax departments into regional tax departments while setting up a steering committee to carry out the arrangement in line with the set plan.
To make its management more effectively, the General Department of Taxation (GDT) has sped up reforms and application of information technology.
According to the GDT latest report, up to 96.21 per cent of the country’s firms has so far registered to pay tax online. Tax revenue collected through the electronic service reached over VND120.6 trillion (US$5.31 billion) with 976,000 transactions in the first three months of this year.
During the period, the number of firms using the electronic tax declaration services was more than 648,000 with some 48 million applications while more than 2,800 firms also used electronic tax refund services to get a total refunds of VND13 trillion.
GDT also reported that 218 firms have so far used 5.9 million e-invoice since the pilot program was launched in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City tax departments in September 2015.
According to Bui Van Nam, GDT General Director, tax revenue collected through the electronic service reached over VND520 trillion ($22.9 billion) last year, accounting for over 51 percent of the country’s total tax revenue.
Last year also witnessed dramatic changes in tax administrative reform. Electronic tax declaration systems were implemented in 63 provinces and cities’ tax offices, with nearly 624,000 tax-paying accounts registered in the system.
GDT has so far also applied the electronic tax refund service to ease taxpayers at all 63 cities and provinces nationwide.
According to GDT, it will focus on implementing revenue management solutions, reducing tax collection losses and managing arrears and value-added tax refunds this year. It will strive to increase tax collections by at least 3 percent against the State budget estimate of VND1.07 quadrillion ($55.88 billion) set for this year.
GDT has so far asked agencies to work hard to achieve the set targets, closely monitor State budget collection, and step up inspections of tax declaration and payment, he said, adding that at least 18.5 percent of businesses will be under inspection this year to prevent losses in State budgetary revenue.
Besides, GDT will also focus on reforming administrative procedures to encourage investment, business, and production, which would in turn boost economic growth.
It will continuously consult relevant ministries and agencies on the revision and supplementation of tax laws and regulations.
