HCM City seeks solutions to reduce revenue losses

	Many domestic revenues reached a relative level in January, 2017
	HCMC Customs tightly controls price of 10 main import commodity groups
	HCMC Customs Department: Makes breakthroughs to facilitate trade.

Mr. Dinh La Thang, the Politburo member, also the Secretary of HCM City Party speaks at the meeting. Photo: T.H.

Regarding tax collection, Mr. Dinh La Thang said that the financial agencies of HCM City made great efforts in the management of State budget collection and expenditures. However, the situation of tax losses in HCM City is currently significant.

"The fact has shown that the anti-tax losses are not only the task of financial agencies of HCM City, the Taxation office and the Customs office, but also the task of all relevant authorities in HCM City", Mr. Dinh La Thang stressed.

Reporting on the fight against tax losses, the Director of the HCM City Taxation Department, Mr. Tran Ngoc Tam said in recent years, the management and collection of tax revenues had achieved good results, especially in the field of anti-transfer pricing. However, there have been a few cases of State revenue losses in transfer pricing and billing.

With nearly 200,000 enterprises and more than 250,000 individual business households, a tax officer now must control 500 individual business households and 160 enterprises. Therefore, a representative of the HCM City Taxation has proposed that the authorities of HCM City should have specific mechanisms for tax administration in the city. Because the number of individual business households and enterprises is very large, which has caused more difficulties to the Taxation office than in the other 62 provinces.

Related to export and import, the Deputy Director of the HCM City Customs Department, Mr. Nguyen Huu Nghiep said that currently, all imported and exported goods could be found in databases of Customs authorities. Thus, in order to fight against transfer pricing, there is a need for a close coordination among the Taxation office, the Customs office and the banking system. Accordingly, in the case where Customs officers detect cases with unreasonable prices, they will transmit information to relevant authorities to resolve.

Regarding solutions for anti-tax losses in 2017, the Vice Chairman of HCM City People's Committee, Mr. Tran Vinh Tuyen said that human resources accounted for 90% of capacity to fight against revenue losses. In the near future, the authorities should improve the efficiency of inspections with less but more effective inspections. In 2017, HCM City will build the data center between the City Government and the business community to control enterprises better. Accordingly, the authorities of HCM City will assign skilled and professional staff to focus on inspections of enterprises, individual households and hold seminars on anti-transfer pricing.

At the meeting, representatives of a number of Department and districts also proposed a number of solutions to reduce State revenue losses in HCM City.

Concluding the meeting, Mr. Dinh La Thang, the Politburo member, also the Secretary of HCM City Party requested relevant forces to strengthen inspection and supervision of Party members working in Finance. In the near future, the authorities of HCM City should strengthen the leadership role of the Party Committees in the supervision and fight against budget revenue losses, creating a fair business environment and promoting socio-economic development.

Specifically, the authorities of HCM City will focus on completing the database center; building a non-cash Government, apply automatic payment systems for food services; conducting IT application in tax collection, anti-tax losses towards transparency; increasing the level of sanctions for tax evasion cases; proposing regulations on the use of invoices; and enhancing professional qualifications and moral qualities of officers working in tax revenue collection. Besides, the fight against smuggling, commercial fraud and counterfeit goods also needs to be strengthened with stricter management mechanisms and coordination among relevant functional forces.

Revenues from import-export increase 15.8% in January, 2017 VCN – According to the latest report of the Ministry of Finance, the total State revenues in ...

The Taxation inspections should focus on enterprises with a high-risk level, including enterprises and individual business households, rather than only enterprises with big revenues, contributing to creating a fair business environment with healthy and sustainable enterprises.