VAT cuts remain in place for additional 6 months: Parliament

Consumers shop in a Big C Supermarket in Hà Nội. The National Assembly has agreed to keep the VAT cuts of 2 per cent in place for an additional 6 months. — VNA/VNS Photo Trần Việt

HÀ NỘI — The National Assembly has agreed to extend the VAT cuts of 2 per cent into 2024 on certain categories of goods and services.

The VAT cuts were originally intended to stay in force between July 1 and December 31, 2023. The Vietnamese National Assembly on Wednesday in its final session of the 6th-sitting reached a decision to keep the fiscal stimulus in place from January 1 to June 30, 2024.

The tax cuts will not apply to some specific categories of goods and services covered by Resolution No.43, which include those in banking and finance, real estate, mining, chemicals, and insurance.

The Government will be designated to implement the decision and report the results to the legislative body in the next National Assembly meeting.

In Wednesday meeting, the National Assembly also gave the go-ahead to the proposal to extend the deadline of the Scheme of Land Acquisition and Resettlement for Long Thành International Airport to December 31, 2024.

It also set aside around VNĐ967 trillion (US$40 billion) from the Central Fund for Public Investment between 2021 and 2025 to finance the scheme.

The legislative body assigned the Government the task of monitoring the scheme to ensure everything is on track and submitting a progress report to the National Assembly.

Previously, in the debate phase, some lawmakers proposed that the fund allocated to the scheme could be reallocated to other traffic or resettlement projects if it is not fully utilised.

In response, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly said because the proposal might trigger a major change to the scheme’s scope, the authority to make such a proposal falls to the scheme decision-makers, who is, in this case, the Government.

As the Government did not include such a proposal in its documents submitted to the National Assembly, the proposal would not be up for discussion and, therefore, not be included in the draft resolution.

In the meeting, the legislative body also agreed to push back the discussion and passing of the revised Law on Land and revised Law on Credit Institutions until future meetings. The reason behind the move was to give lawmakers more time to prepare for the legislation.

The National Assembly urged the Government, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuracy, and other public organisations to tighten discipline and focus their resources on institutional improvement.

It also urged the Government to keep a closer watch on corruption-prone sectors, such as land management, public procurement, and finance and banking, to prevent embezzlement and officialdom.

It also assigned the committee the task of closely cooperating with the public bodies in charge of drafting laws to ensure every single voice is heard and laws can be enacted on schedule. — VNS