General Department of Taxation finishes arrangement and establishment of regional tax branches

	HCM City: The first regional tax branch will operate in March
	Recorded results of tax modernisation reform
	Tax sector deploys decision on merger of regional tax branches

The conference on the morning February 26 at the General Department of Taxation.

Tasks fulfilled ten months eralier

Under Decision No. 520/QD-BTC, dated April 13, 2018 of the Minister of Finance on approving the plan on arranging and merging tax branches at district, town and city levels into regional tax branches under tax departments of centrally-run cities and provinces, the General Department of Taxation developed by 2020 a scheme to arrange and merge about 548 tax branches at district, town and city levels of 63 tax departments in 257 regional tax branches, cutting291 tax branches to 420 tax branches at district level in the tax system.

To do this, the General Department of Taxation, after Resolution 18 – NQ/TW was issued, has actively studied and developeda plan on arrangement and merging as well as introduced synchronous solutions for implementation, including solutions before and after the Minister of Finance issued the decision to arrange and merge tax branches into regional tax branches. Accordingly, the tax agency has issued detailed plans for implementation; established steering committees from the General Department to 63 branches. The General Department of Taxation has worked with the Department of Personnel and organization of the Ministry of Finance to conduct a survey at tax branches nationwide to understand expectations, difficulties and problems of each branch in the implementation.

Motivated by drastic guidance from the Central to the local levels, as well as efforts by the entire tax sector, as of February 2020, the Minister of Finance signed to promulgate 111 Decisions establishing regional tax branches in 63 municipal and provincial tax departmentsaroundthe country, thereby merging 565 tax branches into 267 regional tax branches, reducing 296 tax branches (equivalent to a reduction of 267 managers of tax branches).

Therefore, the number of tax branches across the country reduced from 711 to 415, reaching 102% of the plan inquantity and 10 months earlier as described in the Prime Minister’s Decision no. 41/2018/QD-TTg dated September 25, 2018 and Minister of Finance’s Decision No. 520/QD-BTC dated April 13, 2018.

Streamlined and efficient apparatus

The General Department of Taxation assessed that generally, tax agencies at all levels closely followed the Ministry of Finance’s direction, urged to arrange their apparatus and stabilize their situation to perform the assigned political tasks. This proved that it is the first time 63 localities fulfilled the assigned state revenue task.

“The merging into regional tax branches at pilot tax departments affirms that the objective and view under Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW dated October 25, 2017 of the XII Party Central Committee stipulating some matters on further reforming and arranging apparatus of the political system in a streamlined and efficient manner is reasonable. Merged units have basically fulfilled the assigned state budget revenue tasks,” Director General of Taxation Cao Anh Tuan said.

As reported by local tax departments, regional tax branches are stable in apparatus organization and completed the operational process to ensure targets of state budget revenue and expenditure, social-economic development of each district, town and city under the assigned estimates, thereby contributing to meetingthe tax revenue estimates in 2019.

Among them, there are typically five regional tax departments with revenues increasing from 48% to 77% under the provincial Tax Departments: Ba Ria - Vung Tau; Ninh Thuan; Tien Giang; and Ben Tre. According to the General Department of Taxation's assessment, there are nine Departments of Taxation that have made achievements in arrangement and merging of tax branches, such as pioneering and organizing the implementation; having the largest number of merged tax branches; having the highest percentage of merged tax branches; belonging to a special type of urban area with the largest scale of revenue and the number of taxpayers in the whole country. They are provincial and municipal Tax Departments: Quang Ninh; Hai Duong; Thanh Hoa; Nghe An, Long An; Tien Giang; Thai Nguyen; Hanoi City and Ho Chi Minh City.

As a result, the number of officials, especially leading officials, has decreased accordingly. Specifically, 62 heads of offices were cut, 296 managers of tax branches were cut and 2,100 team leaders were also cut.

General Department of Taxation requested to closely select key personnel when merging the tax branch VCN- In order to continuously deploy the plan on restructuring and merging Tax branches of districts, towns ...

In addition, the administrative procedure reform has been a focus. Taxpayers have been not harassed and faced difficulties. In particular, cadres and civil servants are consistent and feel assured at work, advise sufficiently and promptly for the Party Committees and local authorities in the direction and administration of budget revenue estimates in districts, towns and cities. Tax declaration, payment and settlement of tax problems werecarried out smoothly.