Land use conversion fee is too high - People ask to withdraw their application

Calculated according to new land price list

Ms. TH (residing in Cu Chi district) said that on October 25, 2024, she went to the Reception and Result Delivery Department of Cu Chi District People's Committee to submit a dossier to change the purpose of use of more than 50m2 from agricultural land to residential land, the appointment date for the result delivery is November 11, 2024. When the appointment came, she went to receive the notice of land use fee payment and was shocked to see that the amount to be paid was more than 2.6 billion VND.

She sent a petition to the District People's Committee and the Cu Chi District Tax Department (now the Cu Chi District Tax Team), requesting consideration of applying Decision 02 instead of Decision 79, because she submitted the application before the effective date of Decision 79. However, all agencies responded that the time for calculating land use fees is calculated from the time the tax agency receives the application to calculate the collection fee. The amount to be paid is too high, and she is worried that if she does not pay in full after 30 days, she will be charged a late payment interest of up to 0.03%/day, so Ms. TH had to submit a petition to cancel the decision to change the land use purpose for the above land.

In a similar situation, Mr. NK (Tan Thanh Dong commune, Cu Chi district) when hearing about the new land price list, on October 30, 2024, he submitted an application to convert nearly 960m² of agricultural land to residential land. The receiving and returning results department of Cu Chi district People's Committee received his application and issued an appointment letter to receive the results on November 14, 2024.

But it was more than 2 months later that he received a notice to pay land use fees; applying the new land price list, he had to pay more than 4.3 billion VND, while he calculated according to the old price list, he only had to pay less than 500 million VND. Thinking that this way of determining the time of calculating financial obligations was unreasonable, Mr. NK decided to leave the file and file a complaint.

People come to the one-stop shop of Binh Thanh District People's Committee to carry out land-related procedures (photo taken in March 2025). Photo: Thanh Hien

In some other localities, there are also cases where people who submitted applications before and after October 31, 2024 withdrew their applications because the amount of money to be paid was too high. Mr. Lai Phu Cuong, Head of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Binh Tan District, said that since the new land price list was applied, the district has received about 100 applications for land use purpose change. However, there are about 10 cases of withdrawal of applications because the land use fee increased compared to the original estimate of the people. Most of the cases of withdrawal of land use purpose change applications have large areas, with quite large amounts of money to be paid.

Mr. Vo Phan Le Nguyen, Vice Chairman of Nha Be District People's Committee, informed that from October 31, 2024 to now, the district has received 28 applications for land use purpose change, including 3 applications for cancellation of the decision because of inability to pay land use fees.

“The tax authorities cannot do otherwise.”

In Cu Chi district, there were more than 60 cases of people sending petitions, recommendations, and complaints related to the application of the new land price list when calculating land use fees. On February 21, the leaders of the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department (now the Tax Department of Region II) chaired a direct dialogue with people in Cu Chi district.

To avoid more complaints, the District People's Committee has sent a document requesting the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee and the Department of Agriculture and Environment to provide guidance on the application of Article 3 of Decision No. 79 to land use purpose conversion dossiers that have been fully received by the District People's Committee in accordance with regulations before October 31, 2024.

People crowded to do transactions at Thu Duc City Land Registration Office before the new land price list took effect. Photo: DUC TRUNG

Speaking to SGGP reporters, a representative of the Department of Agriculture and Environment said that Clause 3, Article 155 of the 2024 Land Law stipulates that the time for calculating land use fees is the time when the State allows the conversion of land use purposes. Thus, for land use purpose conversion dossiers before October 31, 2024, the time for determining land use fees is the time of receiving the dossier for calculating fees, not the time of submitting the dossier for conversion of purpose.

Similarly, the Ho Chi Minh City tax department also cited information about the time of calculating land use fees must be based on the time of the decision to change the land use purpose, according to Clause 3, Article 155 of the Land Law. For people's files submitted before October 31, 2024, but the decision to change the land use purpose was issued after this date, the tax authority must base on the time of this decision to calculate the fee.

"The tax authority cannot do otherwise, because doing otherwise is against the law," said a leader of the Ho Chi Minh City tax authority.

On October 28, 2024, tax branches (now tax teams in districts) were directed to close the book for receiving records of determining financial obligations on land on the electronic interconnected system by the end of October 30, 2024, print a list of the number of records eligible for receipt during the day and sign confirmation with the environmental resources agency.

According to records, Cu Chi district has the most cases of problems among localities. The problems are all about changing land use purposes, while other land records such as granting land use right certificates are proceeding normally.

THANH HIEN - PLUM HOA

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/tien-chuyen-muc-dich-su-dung-dat-qua-cao-nguoi-dan-xin-rut-lai-ho-so-post794385.html