Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has just signed Directive No. 29 / CT-TTg on development of socio-economic development plans and state budget estimates in 2018.

Instruction stated that in 2018, GDP growth rate of about 6.4 – 6.8%. Localities base on Gross Provincial Product (GRDP) data in the first 6 months of 2017 of provinces and cities under central authority announced by the General Statistics Office and based on actual conditions. In the locality, the whole year is forecasted and the development prospects are forecasted to determine the 2017 GRDP appropriately.

With regard to the state budget estimates for 2018, the target of mobilizing state budget to GDP in 2018 is about 21%; Excluding the increase or decrease of revenues due to policy changes, the domestic revenue estimates (excluding revenues from crude oil, land use levy, dividend and profit remaining from State enterprises, revenues Increase by 12-14% on average compared to the estimate estimated for 2017 and average export revenue from the export and import activities increase by 5-7% on average compared to the estimated yearly estimate 2017.

On the state budget expenditure estimates in 2018, to thoroughly carry out the thrift and fight against waste right from the determination of tasks and take the initiative in prioritizing priority spending tasks on an urgent and critical level. And ability to deploy in 2018. Only submit to competent authorities for promulgation of new policies when balancing sources; To take initiative in fully meeting the fund requirements for the implementation of new policies, regimes and tasks already decided by competent authorities.

Expenditure for development investment from the State budget must meet the objectives and tasks of the socio-economic development plan in 2018 and the plan for socio-economic development in 5 years 2016-2020. Planning for investment in development of state budget must comply with current regulations before the development of public investment plan 2018.

For projects planned to allocate public investment capital for the period 2016 – 2020, which is lower than the approved investment decision, the ministries, branches and localities need to review and approve the investment decision to adjust the total initial investment Private, determine the technical stopping point or add other legal capital to complete the project in accordance with the scale of capital support from the central budget.

To prioritize the allocation of investment capital for two national target programs and approved target programs aimed at poverty reduction, job creation, agricultural and rural development, mountainous areas and regions. Ethnic minorities, regions severely affected by natural disasters, localities affected by marine environmental incidents; Projects, medical works, education, projects to promote the application of information technology and projects on development of inter-sectoral and inter-sectoral key infrastructures for economic development and GDP growth. .

Programs and projects that plan for the state budget in 2018 must be included in the list of medium-term public investment plans, except for emergency projects in accordance with the Public Investment Law.

On recurrent expenditure, the Directive requires the development of recurrent expenditure estimates for each sector, ensuring adequate tasks, policies and regimes according to the norms of allocation of recurrent expenditure estimates stipulated in resolutions Of the National Assembly, the decision of the Prime Minister.

Review cuts that are not really needed; To combine with the staff downsizing and rearrange the administrative apparatus according to Resolution No. 39-NQ / TW of the Politburo, to reduce the frequency and tighten festive and festive expenses. In the direction of thrift, efficiency; Restricting the allocation of funds for overseas study and survey, purchase of cars and expensive equipment; Extend the implementation of public auto lump sum.

Strive to ensure 20% of total state budget expenditures for education and training; 2% of total state budget expenditures for science and technology.

The directive also requires ministries, central agencies and localities to continue to make estimates to create sources of wage reform, including: 10% savings on recurrent expenditure (excluding salaries, The nature of salary and expenses for human beings according to the regime); 50% of the source of local budget revenues (excluding land use levies, lottery receipts); The source of salary reforms in previous years left over.

At the same time, it is required that administrative agencies and non-business units with self-reliant revenue units strive to increase revenue together with accurate timetable, fully charge service charges and use these revenues to give priority Currently reforming wages.
 

At the dialogue with the leaders of the HCMC Tax Department today, 5-7, many businesses propose functional agencies to adjust the current tax regulations and policies because it does not match with. Actual production of their business. Many of these recommendations have been repeated many times over the years.

Suffering for bill for each gift

According to the current regulations, with the gifts for customers, partners … valued at 200,000 VND or more, enterprises must issue value added invoices. This is a regulation that is supposed to make it difficult for businesses, or even impossible.

Chailease International Financial Leasing Co., Ltd. Reflected, as a mid-autumn festival, the company donated 300 boxes of cake to customers and government agencies. The company does not recognize these expenses as expenses for calculating enterprise income tax, nor declaring value added tax. With such a large quantity, the company would like to allow the export on a bill rather than having to issue a single invoice for each customer as currently prescribed. Because, the output of each sheet is not possible but the recipient himself has no need.

Representatives of Nippon Express Company shared, issued invitations for this gift, any dialogue asked. Tax authorities say they will ask for their opinion but until now, businesses still have to do, it takes a lot of time to issue each invoice.

Mr. Nguyen Nam Binh, Deputy Director of Tax Department of Ho Chi Minh City recognized, in the current situation is 200,000 is not very large value. Therefore, the business is clearly in trouble when complying with regulations. The HCMC Taxation Department will acknowledge this problem and recommend it to the management.

Allow 0% tax imposed but do not dare

On May 9, 2016, the Ministry of Finance sent Document No. 6142 / BTC-CST on tax policy on prices and surcharges in addition to the sea transport services, which stipulates that 11 surcharges are considered The price of sea transport services is 0%. However, according to the business, in fact no one would dare to impose this tax.

Representatives of Nippon Express said that she regularly receives contracts on which the surcharges specified in Official Letter 6142 are 5%, not 0%. She asked the tax office to organize a meeting with logistics companies to discuss and solve the problem.

Another representative of the company explained, it is true that the official letter of the Ministry of Finance, but the business has no clear basis to apply. The representative of this business also contacted the tax authorities for specific instructions but did not get the correct answer, so finally still applied 5% “for safety”, dare not apply 0%.

“If the tax rate is 0%, then the tax authorities do not agree, can not return to collect customers,” he said, petitioning the tax authorities to correct the official letter to clear the enterprise to have. Basis of application; Second is to leave!

According to the accountant of another shipping company, it is because of this ambiguity that she was overseen by foreign bosses that do not know how to work, costing the company to pay 5% While the guided text is 0%.

Before the obstacles of the business, Mr. Binh confirmed, early next week will hold a meeting with businesses in this field to discuss the official 6142.

Troubling personal business tax

ITTA Corporation reported that the company has cooperated with individual business households to sell Vietlott Lottery tickets and commissions based on ticket sales. Individuals with a turnover of more than 100 million VND / year are required to pay a personal income tax of 5% on the commission earned.

The company was guided by the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department at the talk session on March 14, 2017, when paying commissions to individuals, they had to collect bills from individuals and these people could contact the taxpayers. The local tax office to buy sales invoices.

The problem is that, although the Tax Department of Ho Chi Minh City has such instructions, but when individuals buy the bill, only some districts. Conversely, many units responded by word of mouth that they were waiting for the direction of their superiors. In some places, the guideline is that the company paying the commission for the individual may file a tax return and pay the tax instead.

At this point, the problem arises if the company does this, the tax declaration documents are not eligible to determine that eligible reasonable expenses are deducted when calculating enterprise income tax according to current regulations.

Not only that, the income of individuals from 100 million per year or more to pay taxes. But the problem is how to calculate taxes in the individual way: the average monthly divide and then over or under this amount to calculate or wait until the time exceeds 100 million per year then start collecting?

Mr. Nguyen Van Thien, Head of Propaganda and Taxpayer Advocate, HCMC Tax Department said that in this matter, the tax office has written report and seek guidance from the General Department of Taxation to implement the system. Most in the area.

It is also related to the fact that the company, when cooperating with business households and supporting a certain amount of money (commissions when achieving certain turnover), must withhold personal income tax instead, Saigon Cosmetics said that this regulation makes it difficult. Because, businesses not only work with a few individuals that can be up to 100 people. “If so, we have to find more people to do this work,” the representative said.

 

General comment that GDP has many opportunities to continue to improve in the last two quarters but there is a possibility that growth will once again fall short of the plan as the increase in the first six months is quite low. . However, sacrificing short-term goals is essential for Vietnam to look for deep and sustainable growth trends in the medium and long term.

Mining continues to limit GDP growth

General Statistics Office recently announced the socio-economic situation in the first six months of this year, of which the GDP growth rate was 5.73%.

Specifically, in the second quarter, GDP reached a 6.17% increase, a sharp rise compared with the 5.15% increase in the first quarter. Notably, the agricultural, forestry and fishery sector The trend continues with a 2.65% rise, contributing 0.43 percentage points to the overall growth rate (compared to 0.18% for the same period last year). However, the industrial and construction sector saw a much lower increase (only 5.8%) over the same period of 2016 (up 7.1%), mainly due to a decline in the mining sector. %. Only the service sector is still experiencing high and stable growth of 6.85% (the highest level over the same period last year) and contributes 2.59 percentage points (equivalent to 45% ) Into overall growth. Some sectors in the service sector showed high growth rates: wholesale and retail (up 7.1%); Accommodation and catering services (up 8.9%); Finance, banking and insurance (up 7.66%); Real estate business (up 3.86% – the highest increase in recent five years).

There are opportunities but challenges remain
The sharp decline in the mining sector (down 8%) led to a slowdown in GDP, suggesting that the transformation of Vietnam’s economic model into a time-consuming and negative side effect is unlikely. Inevitable
Although there are signs of improvement but the growth rate of 5.73% of GDP in the first six months of the year is still relatively low. This continued to put great pressure on the government’s macro-economic policy in the last two quarters of the year.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc is still steadfast in recent government meetings with a target of 6.7% growth for the whole of 2017. Thus, growth in the remaining two quarters will be over 7% . This is a great challenge when it is common in recent years that only 4 quarters of GDP will increase by approximately 7%.

From a supply-side perspective, given the growth dynamics of the three major economic sectors, if GDP growth is expected to rise sharply in the next two quarters, it is hoped that this will be mainly concentrated in the industrial sector and build. The reason is that the region is experiencing a much lower growth rate (only 5.81%) over the same period of the previous two years (by 9% in 2015 and 712% in 2016) The manufacturing and manufacturing industry in the last two quarters still grew at the same level last year (10.5%). The factors that led to the slow growth of the industry and construction sector came from the mining sector with the decline in crude oil production.

Recognizing the developments, the government has also asked Congress to increase its production by about a million tons (12.28 million tons planned for the beginning of the year) to support growth in the short term. According to calculations by the National Financial Supervisory Commission, if the extraction of one million tons of oil will help GDP grow by nearly 0.2%.
From the aggregate demand side, there are grounds for expectation that GDP will be supported more by household consumption, private investment, government spending and export growth in the second half of the year. Consumption (C) is still considered to be potential when the share of personal consumption in Vietnam’s GDP is only 65% ​â€? lower than some similarly developed countries like the Philippines (73). , 7%), Egypt (80.3%) …

As inflation is on the downward trend (helping to improve purchasing power of the people), personal consumption may be pushed up from now until the end of the year. For Private Equity (I), the State Bank’s monetary easing policy is creating favorable conditions for credit growth to accelerate (as of June 20, 2017 reached 7.54%). And is expected to grow even faster in the next six months.

Regarding public investment, disbursement of state budget investment is facing difficulties when the disbursement rate reaches only 38.7% of the annual plan. However, the Government has recently directed ministries and sectors to remove bottlenecks to further bolster public investment. If the investment capital construction is smooth, the construction industry will grow well, thereby contributing to the growth of GDP. The final factor is export, but it should only be expected to export commodities such as agricultural products, while for the manufacturing and processing industries, the increase in exports also often leads to increased imports. Contribution to GDP growth will be more limited.