The Ministry of Finance has just issued Circular 40/2025/TT-BTC, amending and supplementing a number of articles of circulars in the field of tax management to determine the authority of local governments according to the two-level government organization model.
One of the notable contents of Circular 40/2025/TT-BTC is the amendment of the provisions at Point 3.3, Section I of Circular 09/2002/TT-BTC related to subjects exempted from agricultural land use tax.
Accordingly, poor households with permanent residence in a commune, ward or special zone, but have agricultural land in other localities (including communes, wards, special zones in other provinces) are still exempted from agricultural land use tax for this land if the area has been declared to calculate income for determining poor households.
To enjoy the tax exemption policy, poor households need to clearly declare the area of agricultural land used to determine income and be recognized as poor households. The declaration must be confirmed by the People's Committee of the commune where the permanent household registration is registered. On that basis, poor households will submit a tax exemption application with a confirmed declaration to the local government where there is agricultural land as a basis for tax exemption for the declared land area.
On the contrary, if a poor household has land for production in another locality but does not declare this area to determine income when considering a poor household, the area not declared will not be exempt from agricultural land use tax.
Compared to the current regulations in Circular 09/2002/TT-BTC, a new point in Circular 40/2025/TT-BTC is to clarify the scope of application for the entire area of "commune, ward, special zone", instead of only stating "commune", and at the same time unifying the terminology and process of declaration, confirmation, and submission of applications between localities, ensuring consistency in the application of tax exemption policies.
Circular 40/2025/TT-BTC will officially take effect from July 1, 2025.
