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PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc addressing the teleconference
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He attended the sector’s
teleconference on January 8 with the 63 provinces and cities. The event aimed
to review the sector’s performance in 2017 and set tasks for this year.
A report at the event read that by
the end of December 31, 2017, total state budget balancing revenues are
estimated at more than 1.283 quadrillion VND (56.3 billion USD), about 71
trillion VND (3.1 billion USD) or 5.9 percent higher than the estimates.
Nearly 624,000 or 100 percent of
businesses had used online tax declaration services while almost 98 percent of
them had registered e-tax payment by the end of last year.
Addressing the meeting, PM Phuc recognized
the financial sector’s efforts while also pointing out its shortcomings.
He said financial policies,
especially tax policies, have changed too fast and too much, affecting people
and businesses. Such vagaries show that the making of policies has yet to keep
up with the socio-economic life.
He said tax policies in particular
and financial policies in general must keep pace with the country’s changes and
be stable for a fairly long term, about five to ten years.
The Government leader pointed out a
fact that focus is still on raising tax rates instead of expanding the tax base
to ensure State budget collection.
It is necessary to stay updated with
the development of Industry 4.0, which is happening in various economic sectors
like e-commerce, online services and online games, he stressed, considering
them as “gold mines” to expand the tax base. Meanwhile, the financial sector is
still struggling with the management and exploitation of these taxation
sources.
PM Phuc asked the sector to align
existing tax policies with OECD and United Nations standards. He also called
for its staff’s better sense of responsibility towards the society, people and
businesses so as to eradicate lubrication payments in the sector.
Source: VNA