59 localities exceeded estimated budget revenues in 2016

Many measures were proposed by Local Taxation Departments as: enhancing inspection and examination; debt management and tax debt coercion etc. Photo: Thu Hang.

According to the report of performing the State budget revenues tasks in many localities, in 2016, apart from the localities who reached the estimates, many others exceeded or even completed the year collection tasks early. Typically, the provinces to be mentioned are Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Hai Phong, Dong Nai and Nghe An.

In 2016, the total balance revenue in Ho Chi Minh City reached 103.64% compared to estimates and increased 11.46% over the same period last year. Of which, domestic balance revenues (excluding crude oil) reached 106.35% estimate up 18.72% over last year. Also in Hanoi, the total collected revenue by the Taxation Department (not including dividends, profits of the Central) was 157,909 billion VND, reaching 102.3% of the estimate, an increase of 14% compared with that in 2015.

Dong Nai is one of 13 provinces with self-balance revenues and contributed to the Central budget. Total revenues of the province in 2016 were 27,360 billion VND, reaching 102% of the assigned task, and increased 12.2% compared with 2015. Total revenues in the province of Nghe An also reached 11,005 billion VND in 2016, equivalent to 107% of the plan.

According to the General Department of Taxation, the country had only 4 of 63 Localities which did not complete the estimates including Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Quang Ngai Ca Mau, Kon Tum since they were influenced by oil and gas prices and the situations of unusual natural disasters, droughts and floods.

In the last year, the oil revenue in most localities fell. Thus, to compensate for this falling, need to increase revenues in the ​​domestic area. However, Mr. Tran Ngoc Tam, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Taxation Department shared that, in the last year, companies still had difficulty in producing and business, unprofitable, non-collection of customer debt, so cannot submit to the national budget. The number of firms which submitted cease trading records, escape or fall into loss increased.

In addition, the work of the tax debt coercion met difficulties when the distrained assets are actually secured transactions (mortgage) or the value of assets are not big or there is no assets, and cash or money in the bank is not sufficient to coerce; have to wait for distrained asset valuation with high cost. This is a big challenge for the taxation sector since along with ensuring assigned estimates, industry as a moderate tax revenue guaranteed by the assigned estimates, they strive to collect enough revenue, exceeded revenue to compensate for the loss of crude oil.

However, to complete the task, the General Department of Taxation as well as the Local Taxation Departments have proposed several measures to increase revenues and ensure the correct, revenues and transparency, fairness for the taxpayers. Mr. Nguyen The Manh, Deputy General Director of the General Department of Taxation as the Director of Hanoi Taxation Department said: "To ensure the task of the State budget revenue in 2016, the Taxation Department has advised the Hanoi People's Committee to establish a steering Committee to urge the recovery of tax debts and arrears of land use and land rent in the area of Hanoi. Actively, often to closely collaborate with the police agencies in the prevention of tax fraud, especially in cooperation with police agencies to detect, timely prevent many billing violations cases, purchase and sale of illegal bills. Thus, the total amount of recovered tax debts in 2016 was 12.700 billion VND, up 30% compared with that in 2015".

Along with that, there were many measures proposed by Local Taxation Departments: Strengthening inspection and examination; debt management and coercion of tax debts; increasing application of information technology to manage the taxpayer data; dialogue with taxpayers to solve difficulties and facilitate to nurture revenues sources etc.

At the Conference of summarizing the work of tax duties in 2016 and conducting the tasks, and measures to implement the new tax work in 2017 was held on 11th January, the participated localities reported that the task of collecting 2017 budget will be extremely difficult in the context of the economy with still many uncertainties. However, with the close guidance of the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Taxation and the supports of the enterprises, leaders of the Taxation Department have affirmed their determination to successfully complete the revenues task by 2017, trying to exceed the assigned estimates.