Tax sector ready to perform revenue collection in 2023

The tax sector is ready to respond to scenarios in the implementation of tax collection for the whole year of 2023. Photo: TL.

Many pressures on revenue collection in 2023

In 2023, the estimate of state revenue assigned by the National Assembly and the Government to tax authorities is VND 1,373,244 billion, of which revenues from crude oil are VND 42,000 billion; domestic revenue is VND 1,331,244 billion.

According to the General Department of Taxation, in the context of domestic revenue in 2023, still suffering many fluctuations due to temporarily idle cash flow during the period of economic shutdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it switched to other investment channels of securities and banks in the late 2021 and early 2022 period.

Up to now, the package of monetary policy and solutions to clean up the market of the State Bank is forecasted to direct cash flow into substantive investment channels, creating added value for society. However, it takes more time to turn around to generate profits and revenue for the state budget.

Along with that, tax exemption and reduction policies issued in 2022 still affect the revenue in 2023 (such as reducing environmental protection tax following Resolution No. 20/2022/UBTVQH15, reducing the value-added tax rate from 10% to 8% for groups of goods and services as prescribed in Decree No. 15/2022/ND-CP dated January 28, 2022). In addition, currently, the Government is studying and submitting a proposal to the National Assembly for solutions to remove difficulties for businesses, control inflation, stabilize the macro-economy, and create a suitable environment for businesses to develop. Therefore, in the short term, it may reduce domestic revenue in 2023 compared to the calculated estimate and put pressure on the tax sector's implementation of revenue collection tasks in 2023.

In addition, the world economy is facing many difficulties and challenges when the pressure from inflationary pressure increases, geopolitical conflicts escalate, and the energy crisis becomes more and more serious, leading to a crisis for other commodity markets.

According to a report by the State Bank of Vietnam, up to now, 80 countries in the world have suffered inflation of double digits or more, and many major economies in the world simultaneously implement tight monetary policies, which might trigger the decline, even faster economic recession in many major economies around the world. Moreover, as a highly open economy, the fast, complicated and unpredictable developments of the world economy have been putting great pressure on our country's economy in 2023.

Continue to strive to exceed the assigned task

Right from the beginning of the year, under the direction of the Ministry of Finance, the whole tax sector has prepared scenarios in the performance of collection tasks for the whole year 2023 and the period of 2023-2025 to fulfill the target assigned in the Resolution of the National Assembly.

To strive to exceed the task of state revenue collection, right from the beginning of the year, tax authorities at all levels have followed the direction of the Government, the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance to organize the implementation.

The tax sector also continues to review, research and propose solutions to support taxpayers to overcome difficulties; help businesses have more resources to promote production and business, promote economic growth, and create a premise for increasing state revenue sustainably, meet the financial resource needs for the Government, ministries, sectors and localities to perform socio-economic development tasks.

At the same time, developing and implementing inspection and examination plans based on risk analysis and assessment, focusing on inspecting, examining and combating revenue loss for businesses in high-risk industries and fields, enterprises that refund value-added tax on exports, enterprises eligible for tax exemption or reduction, and businesses have associated activities, signs of transfer pricing; e-commerce business, business on digital platforms, transfer of capital, brands, projects; improve quality and innovate inspection and examination methods in terms of IT application; urging to fully and promptly collect arising revenues and receivables based on the results of the inspection, examination and auditing agencies into the state budget.

In particular, tax authorities at all levels would review the tax debt until December 31, 2022, continue to handle debt following the provisions of Resolution No. 94/2019/QH14, develop and assign targets for tax debt collection in 2023 for lower levels of tax authorities; focus on urging tax amounts that have expired for extend payment to the state budget, avoiding the situation that taxpayers are charged late payment interest; classify tax debts fully and strictly following the instructions in the Tax Debt Management Process to have appropriate solutions to manage and urge collection.

The Tax sector is also determined to take measures to urge and coerce tax debt collection following the provisions of the Tax Administration Law and its guiding documents, striving for the total tax debt by December 31, 2023, to be less than 5% of the total state revenue.