Amend the law to protect the rights of accountants

	Review and amend the Law on Personal Income Tax in tandem with international practices
	Amend the Law on Corporate Income Tax to ensure stable revenue sources for the budget
	Amending the Law to create the best conditions for state-owned enterprises

Enhance the responsibility of leaders, protect the rights of accountants. Photo: ST

Decentralization and delegation of authority for more effective implementation

According to the Ministry of Finance, the Accounting Law stipulates the functions and tasks of state management in the accounting field of the Ministry of Finance, other ministries, branches, and People's Committees at all levels. The regulations are still relatively general, making it difficult to determine the responsibilities of each agency. In addition, ministries, branches, and People's Committees have not been specifically assigned to inspect, examine, and supervise subjects under their management, thus reducing the effectiveness and efficiency of state management in the accounting field.

Moreover, in recent times, there has been a state of stagnation in a part of society due to the fear of making mistakes and being afraid of responsibility. In addition, many economic cases have shown that many heads of units are irresponsible, causing serious consequences. Many accountants violate the law passively because they have to obey the orders of their leaders while the Law does not have regulations on the right of accountants to report and reserve their opinions to avoid occupational risks.

Therefore, the Ministry of Finance is seeking comments on the draft proposal to develop a Law project to amend and supplement a number of articles of 7 laws, including the Accounting Law No. 88/2015/QH15 (Accounting Law).

In the draft Law, the Ministry of Finance proposes to amend and supplement the policy on promoting decentralization, delegation of authority, improving state management capacity in the accounting field; enhancing the responsibility of the head, ensuring consistency and compliance with legal provisions.

The draft also amends and supplements the provisions on decentralization, delegation of authority, clarifying the state management function of the provincial People's Committee; supplementing the responsibility of the head of the unit in the construction area to perform tasks; signing on accounting books, financial reports, preserving and archiving accounting documents, organizing the accounting apparatus at the unit; supplementing regulations to protect the legitimate rights and interests of accountants, etc.

Clearly defining the responsibilities of the Ministry of Finance, ministerial-level agencies and localities according to the instructions on decentralization of tasks in accordance with the characteristics of management and organization of activities helps the legal regulations on accounting to be implemented more appropriately and effectively.

The contents of the instructions and measures for organization and operation are timely and appropriate for each unit and locality, helping the legal regulations to be easily implemented; the reflections on difficulties and problems are received and resolved promptly. The decentralization and delegation of authority for inspection, examination and supervision with the delegation appropriate to the resources of the management agencies will ensure closeness, efficiency and correctness of objectives. Accordingly, the Ministry of Finance focuses on building common mechanisms and policies, conducting inspections and examinations of necessary subjects, answering questions from ministries, branches and localities when there are different opinions.

Contribute to preventing corruption and negativity

Regarding the enhancement of the responsibility of the head and protecting the rights of accountants, the Ministry of Finance proposes to amend and supplement in the direction that the head and legal representative of the units are responsible for implementing the policy.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the regulation on the responsibility of the head aims to enhance the responsibility of the head; perfect the provisions of the law and be consistent with other laws to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of financial and public asset management. At the same time, it creates conditions for handling violations when the head is lax in management, lacks responsibility, prevents corruption and waste in public units as well as protects the legitimate rights and interests of accountants, thereby overcoming the situation of avoidance, shirking, fear of mistakes, fear of responsibility, not daring to think, not daring to do of chief accountants and accountants.

The draft Law supplements the regulation that accountants who have different opinions from their superiors and have reserved their opinions are not responsible for violations when following the instructions of their superiors. The Ministry of Finance believes that this regulation will help accountants reduce occupational risks, feel secure in their work, and boldly give opinions when discovering instructions from their superiors that are contrary to principles and professional ethics, thereby contributing to preventing corruption and negativity right at the unit.

Although the law is being proposed for amendment, in recent times, the management of accounting activities has always been focused on by the Ministry of Finance. Most recently, the Ministry of Finance issued Circular No. 66/2024/TT-BTC regulating the titles, codes, professional standards of professional titles in the accounting profession and considering promotion of professional titles from accountants to chief accountants in public service units.

In particular, the Circular requires accountants to clearly understand and comply with the Law on Accounting, accounting standards, other legal regulations on accounting, etc as well as have skills in using information technology, foreign languages ​​or ethnic languages. Chief accountants need to have a firm grasp of accounting principles, financial regimes, statistics and related economic information, etc.