Reasonable but not enough

(PLO)- The policy of extending tax payment for people and businesses is considered to be beneficial for many parties.

The Ministry of Finance is collecting comments on the draft Decree extending the deadline for payment of value added tax (VAT), corporate income tax (enterprise), personal income tax and land rent and water surface rent in 2023. The goal is to support people and businesses to overcome difficulties and restore production and business.

However, the business community wishes that besides the above policy, the State needs to support both credit policies, reducing loan interest rates, reducing VAT, speeding up tax refund procedures, etc.

Extension of payment of many taxes

In the draft decree, the Ministry of Finance proposes a six-month extension of payment for VAT; payment extension of three months for corporate income tax and six months for land rent. If the proposal is approved, the amount of tax extension in 2023 will be over 110,000 billion VND.

Specifically, the Ministry of Finance proposed a six-month extension of VAT payment, from January to May 2023 and the first quarter of 2023; five-month extension for the VAT amount of June 2023 and the second quarter of 2023. The extension period is counted from the end of the tax payment time limit in accordance with the law on tax administration.

For corporate income tax, the Ministry of Finance proposes to extend for three months the temporary payment deadline of the first and second quarters of the tax period in 2023.

In addition, to remove difficulties for business households and business individuals, the Ministry of Finance proposes to extend the deadline for paying VAT and personal income tax for the amount of tax that must be paid in 2023. this statue. Thus, business households and individuals shall pay the extended tax amount in this Clause by December 30, 2023.

In particular, the Ministry of Finance also proposes to extend the time limit for paying land rent for 50% of the arising land rent payable in 2023 by enterprises, organizations, households and individual business households. The extension period is six months, from May 31 to November 30, 2023.

Hope to put it into practice soon

The Ministry of Finance’s proposal to relax many taxes is highly appreciated by experts and businessmen. Mr. Pham Van Viet, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City Textile – Garment – Embroidery – Knitting Association, said that one of the biggest difficulties of production and business units today is cash flow. Many businesses have to rotate money to pay taxes, but the loan interest rate is too high. Therefore, if the tax payment time is extended, it will help businesses relieve pressure and reduce the cost of high interest loans to pay taxes.

“In addition to the above taxes, we propose to delay the payment of social insurance, health insurance … until the end of 2023 because this year is forecasted that the economy will continue to be difficult. Currently, export output to our country’s major markets such as the EU and the US has decreased sharply, making it difficult to recover in the short term,” Viet suggested.

In addition to the tax payment extension policy, businesses recommend implementing other policies synchronously to restore production and business. Photo: QH

General Director of Agrex Saigon Food Joint Stock Company Pham Hai Long also highly appreciated the listening and understanding of the Ministry of Finance when proposing to extend the deadline for tax payment and land rent to support businesses to overcome the extreme period. this difficult period. Because businesses can use the temporarily extended tax amount that has not yet been paid to focus on production and business. For example, the amount of land rent that enterprises have to pay every year is not small.

“We hope that the tax payment extension policy will soon be implemented with simple procedures for businesses to easily access,” said Mr. Long.

Need more policies

Many experts and businesses consider the tax extension policy as “one arrow hitting many targets”, bringing good results for both businesses, people and the State. Because the amount of tax payment extension means helping businesses reduce production costs and increase working capital. In contrast, the state budget has not decreased, even increased thanks to the nurturing of revenue. However, besides the above policy, it is necessary to effectively implement many other policies to energize people and businesses in the current difficult context.

Mr. Pham Hai Long cited the VAT refund procedure is still very slow. This makes the amount of late VAT refund up to 40-50 billion VND.

“In the past, the tax agency refunded tax on a quarterly basis, businesses had fast cash flow to put into production, buy raw materials… But now the refund procedure is delayed all year, the amount is very large, businesses are forced to borrow money from banks to pay interest. , but profits are on the rise. Therefore, a quick refund of VAT will help businesses a lot, “- Mr. Long suggested.

Sharing the same opinion, Mr. Pham Van Viet commented that the extension of VAT refund causes businesses to face many difficulties, having to mobilize capital to compensate for the amount that has not been refunded VAT, incurring interest costs. While currently lending interest rates of commercial banks are too high, 13.3%-15%, five times higher than the inflation rate (3.15%), making businesses unable to bear it.

“If interest rates are this high, businesses can close and suspend production in the near future. Therefore, we suggest that the banking industry maintain lending at an interest rate below 10% and should keep the deposit interest rate around 6%-7%, not as high as 9%-10%/year as at present. “- Mr. Viet suggested.

Grandfather NGUYEN NGOC HOA,Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City Business Association:

Proposal to reduce interest rates, extend loans

The State Bank needs to find a solution to pull long-term interest rates down to stimulate investment, because now, with long-term interest rates above 10%, businesses have “no door” to invest.

At the same time, the State Bank should continue to implement the loan extension policy in 2023 for medium and long-term loans. Apply a one-year grace period instead of compounding the debt in the following year.

Along with that, the State needs to effectively implement the policy of lending to stop working, leave work and other loans to support businesses that have shortages of orders to have workers quit, work alternately…

We also suggest that the State should continue to apply 8% VAT for all industries, apply until the end of 2024 and settle VAT refunds on time for businesses.

QUANG HUY