On April 23, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave its opinion on the draft Resolution of the National Assembly on reducing value-added tax (VAT) for the last 6 months of 2025 and the whole year of 2026.
At the meeting, Party Central Committee member and Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc said that in the last 6 months of the year, the economy will be affected by US tax policies, it is necessary to continue to reduce taxes for businesses with stable production and business conditions and increase competitiveness.
Regarding the concern about the collection reduction of tens of thousands of billions of VND not included in the budget as stated by the inspection agency, Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc said that there will be a collection method to still complete the budget collection target for this year.
Giving further opinion at the meeting, Chairman of the Economic and Finance Committee Phan Van Mua said that at the previous National Assembly Standing Committee meeting, the Chairman of the National Assembly asked the Economic and Finance Committee to coordinate with the Government agency to grasp the savings from arranging and streamlining the apparatus. Secondly, the number of tasks that perform spending on investment, implementation of the apparatus policy.
Therefore, Mr. Phan Van Mai suggested that Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc direct the coordination agencies to assess the arising revenue and expenditure to balance the budget.
"If the revenue reduction of hundreds of trillion dongs and the generation also have hundreds of trillion, the number is very large.
Regarding this issue, Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc said he would assign the Ministry of Finance to synthesize and report to the National Assembly Standing Committee and the National Assembly Chairman.
According to the Deputy Prime Minister, this year's budget expenditure will increase when streamlining the apparatus. "In particular, the payment of salaries for cadres who quit their jobs and retire early is about 170,000 billion VND, according to incomplete statistics" - Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc said.
According to the Deputy Prime Minister, in addition to tuition fees, there will be a reduction of about 30,000 billion VND. In the coming time, when some policies on health insurance and other policies are implemented, the number of expenses may increase.
Regarding VAT alone, the Deputy Prime Minister said that in the past 4 years, it has decreased by 2%, from 10% to 8%. This is a priority for businesses, ensuring that businesses can recover after the pandemic.
The Deputy Prime Minister added that this year pays the salary, streamlining the apparatus used in the salary fund for a long time, and from the budget. But next year the Government will report to balance the collection policy, taxes and balance in 2026 and in the next 5 years.
