On November 27, speaking to a reporter from the Vietnam News Agency on the sidelines of the 10th session of the 15th National Assembly , National Assembly delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga (Hai Phong delegation) assessed these steps as positive, reducing the burden on employees and small businesses. However, the delegate emphasized the need to continue research, ensuring flexible and fair tax policies that accurately reflect actual costs and tax payment capacity, while effectively supporting business households to recover and develop sustainably.
After the Ministry of Finance received comments from group discussions and hall discussions on the Law on Personal Income Tax, many important contents such as adjusting tax brackets and reducing tax rates were added. Do delegates evaluate whether these adjustments have met voters' expectations and are consistent with current income practices?
First of all, I appreciate the serious and receptive efforts of the Ministry of Finance when adjusting many major contents directly related to the lives of people, especially wage earners. Adjusting tax rates, widening the gap between rates and reducing tax rates at some lower rates is a step in the right direction, demonstrating an understanding of the context of strong fluctuations in income and expenses. In the context of increasing consumer prices, living costs, education and health care costs, if the tax policy is not adjusted, it will create great pressure on millions of workers.
These adjustments contribute to significantly reducing the tax burden, increasing disposable income and thereby promoting consumption, supporting economic growth. At the same time, we are also getting closer to international practice, where tax rates and tax thresholds are often updated periodically according to inflation. However, I think voters' expectations are still higher. This adjustment is positive, but not really commensurate with the rate of price increase and actual living costs, especially for low- and middle-income groups. Many opinions suggest that there should be a mechanism to automatically adjust family deductions according to inflation, avoiding the situation of having to wait for a new law to be updated.
It can be seen that the adjustments proposed by the Ministry of Finance have created a clear change, gradually approaching people's expectations. However, further research is still needed to make the personal income tax policy truly flexible, updated according to reality, accurately reflecting the minimum living standard and ensuring fairness for taxpayers.
The Ministry of Finance’s adjustment to sharply raise the threshold for non-taxable revenue for individual businesses, including the proposal to consider a higher level of VND 200 million/year, is said to ensure fairness for salaried workers. Do delegates think this adjustment is reasonable, consistent, and provides enough support for small business households?
I appreciate the Ministry of Finance's initiative to propose raising the threshold for non-taxable revenue for business households, but frankly, the level of 200 million VND/year is still not really reasonable in the current context. Because if calculated on average, revenue of less than 20 million VND/month must start declaring and paying taxes. This is a very small number when put into the reality of small business operations in urban areas - where the costs of premises, raw materials, and labor are all high. For industries with profit margins of only 5 - 10%, revenue does not reflect their "real tax payment ability", because most of the revenue is only enough to cover costs.
We must distinguish tax equity from tax uniformity. Salaried workers have a stable income, are paid by the enterprise, and do not have to bear market risks. Business households are the opposite: they invest by themselves, bear their own risks, their income fluctuates seasonally and according to the market, and have many arising expenses. Therefore, their tax threshold cannot be the same as the taxable income of the group with stable income. Therefore, in my opinion, we need to continue to consider raising this threshold to a level higher than 200 million VND or classify it by industry, field - region. Some industries such as small restaurants, grocery stores, tailoring, home services... have very low profit margins and need to be designed with a more suitable threshold. Only then can we ensure two principles: supporting the right subjects and nurturing long-term revenue sources.
In short, raising the threshold is in the right direction, but the level of 200 million VND/year is still low, not creating enough space for small businesses to recover and develop sustainably. The policy needs to be further studied to ensure consistency, fairness and practicality.
An important new point is that the Ministry of Finance proposed to shift to collecting taxes based on income (revenue minus expenses) for the group of revenue under 3 billion VND instead of collecting from the first VND. According to delegates, does this adjustment reflect the true nature of income and is it possible to effectively implement it in practice?
I consider this a strong and progressive reform move that reflects the true nature of tax: levied on real income, not gross revenue. For small businesses, especially those with less than 3 billion VND in revenue, input costs account for a very large proportion. If tax is collected based on the first VND in revenue as is currently the case, it will not reflect their tax-bearing capacity, creating a feeling of unfairness.
However, the most important question is the ability to implement. Calculating real income requires business households to have the habit of keeping books, keeping invoices and documents, which many households are currently not familiar with or do not have the conditions to do. Without a clear support mechanism, it is easy to lead to inaccurate expense declaration, even causing revenue loss or negative consequences in the process of determining taxable income.
Therefore, to make the policy feasible, three solutions need to be implemented simultaneously: First, standardize the reasonable cost ratio for each industry so that businesses can easily declare and tax authorities can easily check. Second, promote the application of technology such as electronic invoices and cash registers directly connected to tax authorities to minimize manual intervention. Third, strengthen communication, training and technical support for businesses of all sizes, especially in rural areas.
In principle, this policy is correct, reasonable and progressive. However, its effectiveness depends on the readiness of digital infrastructure, management capacity and changes in taxpayer habits. If done well, this will be a turning point to help tax policy approach international standards and be fairer for the people.
Thank you very much, delegates.
Source: https://baotintuc.vn/chinh-sach-va-cuoc-song/thue-thu-nhap-ca-nhan-can-sat-thuc-te-ho-tro-dung-doi-tuong-20251127141530410.htm
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