Prime Minister: Electronic invoice is an important milestone in digital transformation

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh

Fulfill the spirit of digital transformation

According to the Prime Minister, the announcement of the national e-invoice system is an important event, affirming the great efforts, high determination and drastic actions of the Government, the Ministry of Finance and the tax sector in the process of accelerating national digital transformation under the direction of the Government and the Prime Minister, towards a digital government, digital economy and digital society.

The Prime Minister stated that the document of the 13th Party Congress mentioned digital transformation, digital economy and digital society in the objectives, perspectives of the development and strategic breakthroughs.

The Politburo issued Resolution No. 52-NQ/TW on a number of guidelines and policies to actively participate in the fourth industrial revolution, which emphasized the urgent need to accelerate the transformation process.

The Prime Minister issued Decision 749 approving the National Digital Transformation Program to 2025, with an orientation to 2030. The spirit is implementing digital transformation in all fields, but due to limited time and resources, it must have key points, in which, tax is an industry that includes many factors, so it must take the lead in the digital transformation process.

"Tax is an important field of national finance, directly related to people and businesses. The application of information technology and digital transformation in this field brings a lot of benefits in management work as well as for people and businesses. It not only ensures correct and sufficient collection, saving social costs but also enhances publicity, transparency, and prevention of corruption in the process of collection. President Ho Chi Minh had instructed tax officers: ‘Tax collection must win the hearts of the people.’ This warning is still valid and the tax industry has inherited and developed the motto ‘Transparency - Professionalism - Integrity – Innovation’,” the Prime Minister said.

Hitting many targets

At the ceremony, the Prime Minister especially appreciated the efforts of the Finance sector in launching electronic invoices with a methodical and scientific plan in two phases. This is a new job with a large volume, implemented in a short time, and encountered many obstacles, especially in changing thinking, management and implementation methods.

However, the Finance industry has learned from experience, expanded gradually, and achieved very important initial results. In particular, the use of e-invoice codes to organize lucky draws and prizes is very creative.

The initial results showed that the application of e-invoices was an "arrow hitting many targets", contributing to changing the operating methods, management, and working processes of the tax authorities as well as of the people, businesses in a positive and modern direction, increasing publicity and transparency, preventing fraud, developing e-commerce, reducing compliance costs, creating a favorable business environment, in line with international trends, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said.

The Prime Minister assessed that the implementation of e-invoices would promote the construction, integration, connection and sharing with key national databases such as databases on population, business, insurance, land, towards building a digital ecosystem; to renovate the state management in many sectors and fields; promoting the development of digital government, towards a digital economy, digital society and digital citizenship.

Besides the positive results mentioned above, administrative reform, promoting the application of information technology and digital transformation still face many difficulties and challenges.

The Prime Minister stated the challenges faced by the tax sector such as no clear digital transformation strategy; shortage of highly qualified human resources, especially information technology; has not been invested properly, inappropriate with the reality of development, especially in terms of technology infrastructure; the adaptation of a part of people, businesses and state management agencies is still limited; dissemination and mobilization of people and businesses to actively and effectively participate in digital transformation have been not considered enough.

The Prime Minister wished that the Finance sector would be more determined and overcome all difficulties to continue developing the tax sector to a new height. The Prime Minister emphasized a number of lessons learned. They must be determined and decisive in leadership, directing and operating, especially leaders based on political, legal and practical grounds, scientific to create unity in awareness and action from central to grassroots level; coordinate smoothly and synchronously in the tax sector, between sectors, businesses and people; promote the creative and breakthrough spirit of the contingent of cadres and civil servants in finding solutions, overcoming difficulties and challenges, fulfilling the assigned tasks; constantly improve the institution derived from the practice and invest in appropriate facilities, as well as improve the quality of human resources.

These are also important lessons for other ministries, sectors and localities to take as a reference in management, administrative reform, and promotion of information technology application and digital transformation.

The head of the Government stated that the tax sector needed to continue to make efforts to build a synchronous, unified, transparent, fair, effective and stable tax policy system, appropriate to the socialist-oriented market economic institution, in line with the tax reform strategy for the 2021-2030 period.

The tax system must both contribute to promoting socio-economic development, and be one of the effective macroeconomic management tools, as well as contribute to improving the investment and business environment, and improving national competitiveness, strengthening trust, creating favorable conditions for people and businesses to actively and effectively participate in socio-economic development and the digital transformation process.

At the ceremony, the Prime Minister suggested five basic foundations of the tax industry: tax administration institutions continue to be perfected, transparent, modern and practical; administrative procedures are simple and convenient, suitable to Vietnamese conditions and international practices; application of modern information technology, with high connectivity and automation, ensuring information security and safety at the highest level; building a professional, modern, transparent, effective and efficient tax industry, fighting corruption and negativity; decentralization of authority should be appropriate and effective, enhancing the centrality of the central government, taking the initiative of the locality, along with building effective inspection and monitoring tools.

"The tax industry needs to continue to strengthen the application of modern technology in management, ensure the simplest and easiest tax declaration and payment; strive to have 100% of administrative procedures by the end of 2022. The tax sector is connected to the National Public Service Portal," the Prime Minister said.