HANOI: The Ministry of Finance would speed up the collection of tax arrears in September as a part of the efforts to fulfil the budget collection goal amid plunging oil prices. The ministry said that this month tax departments planned to collect more than 50 per cent of the total tax arrears from 600 companies whose names had been publicised under Document 9901/BTC-TCT on July 20.
Checks would be conducted to continue to make public the names of companies with tax arrears, but this must be implemented with accuracy, the ministry said. Publicising the names of firms was considered a solution to increase tax collection.
In Ha Noi alone, the latest updates from the Department of Taxation showed that as of the end of August, 157 out of 268 companies in the city, whose names were made public during the past two months, paid more than VND1.1 trillion (US$48.88 million) or 20 per cent of their total tax arrears.
An estimation by the Ministry of Finance revealed that in August tax arrears totalled VND74 trillion ($3.289 billion) throughout the country, double the acceptable level.
The ministry also suggested measures to be implemented within this month in order to ensure budget collection, saying that low oil prices coupled with uncertainty in the financial markets would continue to affect the budget collection. Accordingly, there would be a close watch on the fluctuations in oil prices and the financial markets for timely measures to ensure balance in collection and spending.
In addition, the tax and customs departments must enhance management and supervision to prevent tax frauds which cause losses to the Government’s budget collection, the ministry said.
In the first eight months of this year, the Government collected VND618.14 trillion ($27.47 billion), an increase of 7 per cent over the same period last year. The collection in the eight-month period was equivalent to nearly 68 per cent of the estimate for the full year. The Government’s spending totalled VND733.3 trillion ($32.6 billion) in the period, bringing the budget deficit to more than VND115 trillion ($5.13 billion).
