On the afternoon of May 28, the National Assembly discussed in the hall the draft Resolution of the National Assembly regarding the policy of reducing value-added tax (VAT).
According to the calculation of the Ministry of Finance, this VAT reduction alone will reduce state budget revenue by about 121,740 billion VND. Of which, in the last 6 months of 2025, it decreased by VND39,540 billion ( balanced in the revenue estimate), in 2026, it decreased by VND82,200 billion.
Explaining the issues that the delegates are concerned about, Minister of Finance Nguyen Van Thang said that reducing VAT will of course affect the economy and reduce budget revenue. However, in return, it has a positive effect in stimulating production, promoting production and business activities and increasing budget revenue from promoting economic development.
To do this, the Government and the Ministry of Finance have taken solutions to have fiscal policies to compensate for this VAT reduction.
According to Minister Nguyen Van Thang, the 2% VAT reduction policy is truly a positive policy in the context of businesses facing difficulties, especially businesses affected by negative impacts throughout the COVID-19 period as well as post-COVID-19.
Regarding the scope of policy adjustment, the Government's plan proposed by the National Assembly this time is to consider and consider extending VAT reduction until the end of 2026, because businesses are currently facing many difficulties.
The VAT exemption for businesses themselves has a positive impact on the production and business sector. Therefore, this is a very necessary action to be taken. Therefore, the Government decided to apply this policy until the end of 2026.
For credit activities that need to be exempted from VAT according to the delegate's proposal, the Minister of Finance said that for services of financial activities, banking, credit, securities, and insurance that are not subject to VAT, the law also does not stipulate, so there is no need to reduce.
According to Minister Nguyen Van Thang, in the recent period, when we implemented the VAT exemption and reduction policy to support businesses, we have not really raised the problem of what specific results we will achieve if we reduce taxes, exempt taxes and reduce the budget in return.
"It's true that there is no specific calculation here. But we also see that throughout the COVID-19 epidemic and the recent period, the VAT exemption and reduction policy has had direct impacts on businesses and even consumers," said the Minister.
The Minister explained that VAT exemption and reduction will stimulate consumption and thereby promote production, business and promote better consumption of goods.
The Minister said that this issue will be noted so that during the policy making process, it will be calculated specifically, there will be convincing data to report to the National Assembly when implementing tax exemption and reduction policies and having impacts on the state budget.
