Proposal to clarify the regulation on collecting 2% corporate income tax for public hospitals
On the morning of May 12, the National Assembly discussed the amended Law on Corporate Income Tax (additional).
Contributing opinions to the draft Law, delegate Nguyen Lan Hieu - National Assembly Delegation of Binh Dinh province pointed out the reality that the problem is occurring because the local tax authority requested medical examination and treatment facilities to pay a 2% income tax on medical examination and treatment service revenue of medical facilities, including the revenue from health insurance.
"The regulation only imposes tax on services as required, joint ventures and associations... in medical examination and treatment activities, but in reality, the tax authority is based on the word "service", so anything with this word will be subject to tax.
In the health system, there is a concept of revenue from public service, so the vast majority of the revenue sources of autonomous public hospitals are currently taxed" - Mr. Hieu analyzed.
From the above reality, Mr. Hieu proposed to add a provision: Public service units in the health sector do not have to pay corporate income tax on revenue from medical examination and treatment services that do not fully include cost-of-payment (working expenses; direct expenses; cost of medical equipment depreciation, fixed assets; management costs).
Explaining further about this proposal, Mr. Hieu said that the service price prescribed for activities according to functions and tasks assigned by the State only counts 2/4 factors. This price is not enough to cover arising costs, so there is no profit to pay taxes.
Furthermore, Clause 2, Article 11, Clause 2, Article 15 of Decree 60/2021/ND-CP stipulates the financial autonomy mechanism of public service units, stipulating:
Career revenue:
a) Revenue from public service activities;
b) Revenue from production and business activities; joint ventures and associations with organizations and individuals...".
According to Clause 1, Article 5 of Decree 60/2021/ND-CP, medical examination and treatment services at the price prescribed by the Ministry of Health and the Provincial People's Council under Point a "Revenue from public service activities" are not services under Point b "Revenue from production and trading activities of goods and services" mentioned above.
"We propose to clarify so that tax authorities can base and collect taxes from hospitals and medical examination and treatment facilities" - Mr. Hieu said.
Sharing the same view, delegate Hoang Van Cuong - National Assembly Delegation of Hanoi City proposed: "Health and education supply activities of public units are not subject to corporate income tax except for joint ventures and activities linked to the outside (ie with profit factors)".
Inadequacy of why drivers still have to bear drug taxes
Another problem pointed out by delegate Nguyen Lan Hieu is related to the corporate income tax policy for revenues from drugs and medical supplies used in inpatient medical examination and treatment.
Mr. Hieu pointed out that Circular 14/2020/TT-BYT (Article 3) clearly stipulates: Disectors are not allowed to add costs to the winning drug price, including storage costs, management costs, etc. Circular 15/2019/TT-BYT also regulates drug prices in public health facilities: "The drug price must not be higher than the approved winning bid price".
This leads to medical examination and treatment facilities having to bear tax costs, especially medical examination and treatment facilities paying taxes directly on revenue (1% value added tax and 1% corporate income tax).
"This amount will be counted in the people's pocket. Therefore, I propose to add a regulation on tax exemption for drugs used by patients inpatients" - Mr. Hieu said.
