On August 28, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave opinions on the draft Law on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Development.
Speaking at the meeting, Politburo Member, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man emphasized that the amendment of the law must create a policy breakthrough, shifting from supporting according to the State's ability to provide to supporting according to the actual needs of businesses.
A new point in this draft, according to the National Assembly Chairman, has removed the criterion of total capital sources that are difficult to determine and easily cause controversy.
The draft law only retains two criteria: the average annual number of employees equal to or less than 300 people and total revenue of the immediately preceding year equal to or less than 400 billion VND.
At the same time, the draft expands the priority subjects for businesses owned by women, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities and businesses converted from household businesses.
Positively assessing this change in the draft, the National Assembly Chairwoman also suggested that risks that may arise must be carefully calculated. For example, the revenue threshold of 400 billion VND can still "slip" into some businesses that already have very good capacity to be supported, thereby diluting national resources.
In addition, labor criteria may not accurately reflect the reality of high-tech enterprises - using very little personnel but having large revenue and extremely high added value.
Therefore, the Ministry of Finance needs to study and supplement criteria on added value or cost-to-revenue ratio for the group of technology enterprises.
At the same time, there needs to be a screening mechanism when businesses continuously exceed the threshold for 2 to 3 years to avoid the situation of "receiving support forever".
The National Assembly Chairwoman also noted that business licensing is very easy but very difficult to issue. In fact, there are businesses in the style of "catching thieves with bare hands", registering to establish businesses only for buying and selling invoices and documents and trade fraud.
At the meeting, Mr. Dau Anh Tuan - Deputy Secretary General cum Head of the Legal Department of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) - said that it is necessary to focus on policy groups that can be implemented immediately after the law is promulgated.
Because practice from the 2017 law as well as many other laws shows that many good policies such as financial support, capital support, and land support, but when it goes down to the grassroots level, businesses benefit very little.
In particular, Mr. Tuan proposed that micro-enterprises and business households with revenue of less than 10 billion VND be allowed to pay taxes according to revenue.
The reason is that revenue below 10 billion VND currently still has to open accounting books, there are up to 4 types of books and pay taxes on revenue minus expenses.
But for micro-enterprises and household businesses, cost calculation is very complicated. How can a pho restaurant prove where the chicken was bought with invoices and documents?" - Mr. Dau Anh Tuan stated.
According to a representative of VCCI, if tax payment on revenue is allowed, it will affect 5-6 million business households and micro-enterprises, and the social effect will be very large.
Accepting additional explanations, Member of the Party Central Committee, Minister of Finance Ngo Van Tuan said that after this law is promulgated, specific guidance will be provided for businesses with revenue of less than 10 billion VND to pay taxes according to a simple method based on the revenue ratio.
