Seeking opinions on handling land rental debt of public service units

Specifically, the Government agrees to submit to the National Assembly for comments on the handling of land rent and late payment fees of public service units that are subject to switching to land rent, are exempted from land rent according to the provisions of the 2013 Land Law but have not yet switched to land rent according to the provisions of Clause 3, Article 30, Clause 4, Article 118 of the 2024 Land Law and Clause 3, Article 51 of Decree No. 103/2024/ND-CP dated July 30, 2024 of the Government regulating land use fees and land rent as submitted by the Ministry of Finance in Submission No. 25/TTr-BTC dated February 4, 2025 and the attached documents.

The Government assigned the Minister of Finance, authorized by the Prime Minister, to sign on behalf of the Government the Government's Submission to the National Assembly on seeking opinions on handling land rent and late payment fees of the above-mentioned public service units.

Proposal to not pay land rent for the period of time when land rent exemption procedures have not been completed or are delayed before the effective date of the 2024 Land Law

According to the draft Government Proposal, the financial mechanism on land (land rent) for public service units has been specifically regulated by the 2024 Land Law. However, according to the feedback from ministries, branches and localities, the transitional handling of land rent for public service units leased land by the State before the effective date of the 2024 Land Law is still facing difficulties.

The Government seeks the National Assembly's opinion and proposes a form of handling land rent and late payment fees of public service units that are subject to switching to land lease, are exempted from land rent according to the provisions of the 2013 Land Law but have not yet switched to land lease according to the provisions of Clause 3, Article 30, Clause 4, Article 118 of the 2024 Land Law and Clause 3, Article 51 of Decree No. 103/2024/ND-CP dated July 30, 2024 of the Government regulating land use fees and land rent as follows:

In the case of public service units that are subject to switching to land lease and are exempted from land rent according to the provisions of the 2013 Land Law but have not switched to land lease or have switched to land lease but have not or are late in completing procedures to be exempted from land rent and the tax authority has not issued a notice to pay land rent, then according to the provisions of Clause 3, Article 51 of Decree No. 103/2024/ND-CP dated July 30, 2024 of the Government, they will not have to pay land rent for the period when they have not or are late in completing procedures to be exempted from land rent according to the provisions before the effective date of the 2024 Land Law.

The Government submitted a request for the National Assembly's opinion on handling land rental debt of public service units.

There are still many practical problems regarding land rental payment of public service units.

In the case where the tax authority has issued a notice of payment of land rent and late payment of land rent but the public service unit has not paid or has not paid in full according to the notice, the draft Proposal clearly states: According to the provisions of the law on tax management and the Resolution of the National Assembly on tax debt relief, there is no adjustment for the land rent debt of public service units that are subject to switching to land lease according to the provisions of the law on land in 2013, which are exempted from land rent but have not or are late in completing the exemption application and the tax authority has issued a notice of payment of land rent.

In addition, according to the provisions of the 2013 Land Law, self-financed public service units using land to build public facilities must switch to land lease from the effective date of the 2013 Land Law (July 1, 2014) and the units must complete procedures to be exempted from land rent for the entire lease term for the land area used to build public facilities.

However, through the synthesis of reports from ministries, branches and localities, due to various subjective and objective reasons, in reality, there are public service units that are slow in completing procedures to switch from the form of State land allocation without land use fee collection to land lease (some cases were assigned autonomy after July 1, 2014 and had to reorganize the apparatus, stabilize operations when switching to financial autonomy; Land lease contracts were implemented slowly, prolonged... leading to insufficient documents according to regulations, so the submission of applications for exemption or reduction of land rent was delayed); besides some units that proactively submitted applications for exemption from land rent according to regulations immediately after the decision to switch to land lease, there are also units that have not yet completed procedures for exemption or reduction of land rent.

In addition, according to the provisions of Clause 6, Article 18 of Decree No. 46/2014/ND-CP dated May 15, 2014 of the Government, land and water surface lessees are only entitled to exemption and reduction of land and water surface rent after completing the procedures to be exempted and reduced according to regulations.

Therefore, these units are only exempted from land rent for the remaining period (from the date of issuance of the land lease decision to the end of the lease term or from the date of completion of procedures for exemption or reduction of land rent) but are not exempted from land rent for the period from the date of issuance of the decision on autonomy to the date of issuance of the land lease decision or the date of completion of procedures for exemption of land rent, leading to the arising of additional collection or recalculation of land rent for the period before the land lease decision was issued due to not being exempted from land rent according to regulations due to the expiration of the time limit for submitting the application for exemption of land rent.

At the same time, in the legal guidance documents on granting financial autonomy to public service units in the fields, there is no content about land rental costs, so when developing and approving the financial autonomy plan of public service units, land rental costs are not included in the service price. Public service units are established and operate mainly to provide essential public service services, directly related to the daily life of people and the activities of organizations in society (such as hospitals, fishing ports, river tourism, etc.); some service units mainly perform tasks of measuring, surveying, monitoring, sampling, etc. to serve the basic investigation of resources and environment, and promote agricultural trade, so there is no source of revenue to pay land rental.

Based on the above, the delay in completing procedures to change from the form of State land allocation without land use fee collection to land lease, leading to the collection of land rent from self-financed public service units, affecting the implementation of the land rent exemption policy of the units. The amount of money collected has caused the service units to change their level of financial autonomy, unable to pay money to the budget, leading to land rent debt and late payment fees, also causing difficulties for tax authorities in debt collection and debt reduction because this is an uncollectible debt; in cases where payment is mandatory, the state budget must also be balanced and arranged in the budget estimates of the following years so that the units have a source to pay the remaining land rent according to the tax authority's notice, but this is also difficult to do.

Therefore, a number of ministries, branches and localities have proposed to consider handling the land rent arrears that public service units still owe (including late payment of land rent) to create conditions for these units to have their debts cleared and operate with peace of mind; at the same time, reduce the burden on tax authorities in monitoring and urging the collection of arrears of land rent in this case.

Proposal to handle land rental debt of public service units applied as case of land rental debt cancellation in tax management

Based on the above, the Government submits to the National Assembly in the direction of basing on the provisions of the above law and from the practical difficulties in paying land rent of public service units, the National Assembly allows the handling of land rent debts of public service units (subject to the requirement to switch to land rent and be exempted from land rent according to the provisions of the 2013 Land Law but due to not yet or late submission of land rent exemption dossiers and the tax authority has issued a notice of land rent payment but has not yet paid or has not fully paid) in the form applied as in the case of land rent debt cancellation prescribed in the law on tax management; the procedures and processes for implementing land rent debt cancellation for public service units are implemented as in the case of tax debt cancellation prescribed in the law on tax management (the tax authority removes this collection on the Tabmis system for tax collection monitoring).

At the same time, the National Assembly shall consider and handle the outstanding land rent and late payment fees of public service units (subject to the transfer to land lease and exemption from land rent according to the provisions of the 2013 Land Law) and include this content in the Joint Resolution of the National Assembly session; after the National Assembly agrees in principle, the Government shall carry out relevant processes and procedures to report to the competent authority to include the above content in the Joint Resolution of the National Assembly session.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/xin-y-kien-ve-xu-ly-so-no-tien-thue-dat-cua-don-vi-su-nghiep-cong-lap-d373872.html