Ho Chi Minh City Customs: Efforts to collect revenue in difficult times

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Ho Chi Minh City Customs officers carry out procedures for imported goods. Photo: T.H

Many solutions to nurture revenue sources

In the last days of 2023, it was recorded at Saigon Port Area 1 Customs Sub-department, although import and export goods decreased compared to the previous year, customs officers here were very busy focusing on state budget revenue.

Deputy Director of Saigon Port Area 1 Border Gate Customs Sub-department Ly Hien Hoa said that this year, the unit was assigned a state budget collection target of 51,000 billion VND, but on December 11, 2023, the unit only collected nearly 41,000 billion VND, reaching over 78% of the planned target. As the unit assigned the largest collection target in the entire Department, Saigon Port Area 1 Customs Sub-department must collect about VND 4,250 billion each month to achieve the assigned target. However, from the beginning of the year until now, the amount of imported and exported goods with tax procedures at the branch has decreased significantly, affecting the unit's state budget revenue results. Therefore, in no month has the unit's revenue reached VND 4,200 billion. The highest revenue month only reached over 4,100 billion VND, the lowest month reached nearly 2,600 billion VND.

Similarly, the Investment Goods Management Customs Sub-department was assigned the second largest state budget revenue target at the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department with 30,600 billion VND, but only reached more than 76% of the assigned target.

Identifying difficulties affecting state budget revenue results in 2023, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department proactively deployed many solutions to carry out tasks right from the beginning of the year, focusing on solutions to facilitate trade, nurturing revenue sources. Accordingly, the unit has organized a series of conferences, seminars, dialogue programs with businesses, thematic training programs, etc to focus on removing obstacles and difficulties as well as disseminating legal policies of Customs law for the business community, thereby creating conditions for businesses to comply with the law, promoting trade flow in the management area, and nurturing budget revenue. In addition to thematic dialogue conferences, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has organized 4 conferences, programs, and training courses on customs procedures for the business community, such as: goods classification operations, improving skills in applying HS codes and classifying goods, etc.

In addition, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department pays special attention to tax debt collection. Right from the beginning of the year, the unit has seriously and drastically implemented many strong solutions to effectively enforce tax debt collection, contributing to completing assigned tasks. As a result, the entire Department has processed and recovered nearly 700 billion VND in tax debt. In addition, the work of preventing state budget revenue loss aims to create a fair business environment for businesses. In 2023, the entire Department has increased revenue for the state budget by nearly 350 billion VND from post-clearance audit, price consultation, anti-smuggling and inspection operations.

With synchronous solutions, in the 11 months of 2023, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department collected 111,924 billion VND, equal to 78.87% of the ordinance target (145,800 billion VND); decreased by 14.42% (equivalent to an absolute decrease of 19,378 billion VND) compared to the same period in 2022 (2022 reached 134,368.4 billion VND).

Revenue ranks first in the entire industry

Analyzing the state budget revenue targets of the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department Dinh Ngoc Thang said that in the 5-year period (2018-2022), the state budget revenue ordinance targets of the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department have increased from 108,000 billion VND (2018) to 116,500 billion VND (2022), the average annual growth rate is 1.57%. By 2023, the growth rate of the ordinance target is 15.98 times higher than the growth rate of state budget revenue in the 5-year period (2018-2022), with the state budget revenue target for Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department being 145,800 billion VND.

According to Director Dinh Ngoc Thang, compared to the entire Customs industry, currently the state budget revenue of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department accounts for 33.4% of the entire sector's revenue and ranks first in thesector. With the above results, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department estimates that state budget revenue by December 31, 2023 would reach 121,000 billion VND, equal to 82.99% of the ordinance target; down 15.4% (equivalent to an absolute decrease of VND 22,035 billion) compared to the same period in 2022.

According to analysis of the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, despite great efforts, the state budget revenue in 2023 still decreased compared to the previous year by over 22,000 billion VND. The decrease in revenue is due to a decrease in import-export turnover. Total import-export turnover in 11 months of 2023 reached 110.70 billion USD, down 11.15% (equivalent to 13.89 billion USD). Import-export turnover with tax in 11 months of 2023 reached 34.15 billion USD, down 15.26% (equivalent to 6.15 billion USD). Total accumulated import-export turnover from the beginning of the year to December 31, 2023 is estimated to reach 120.97 billion USD, down 10.62% (equivalent to a decrease of 10.26 billion USD).

Sharing with the difficulties of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, at a working session with the unit in mid-December 2023, Minister of Finance Ho Duc Phoc encouraged and acknowledged the outstanding efforts of officers of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department. The Minister emphasized: "As a unit with a large revenue, accounting for 1/3 of the total revenue of the entire Customs sector, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has made efforts, solidarity and creativity in implementing tasks, with high goals. The most important thing is to strive to complete assigned tasks well in the context of performing very difficult tasks." The Minister also said that in the coming time, the economic forecast will continue to be difficult, purchasing power will decline, aggregate demand will decrease, and import-export turnover will decrease. These factors will directly affect state budget revenue. Therefore, the Minister noted that Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department needs to uphold the spirit of responsibility and solidarity to overcome difficulties and challenges, while also improving the ability to forecast and analyze the situation to find appropriate solutions with reality, perform tasks to achieve the highest results.

In 2023, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department presided over, coordinated, detected and arrested 2,759 violations with an estimated value of infringing goods of 3,853.8 billion VND. In particular, the unit has sanctioned 2,716 administrative violations with a total fine collected and paid to the state budget reaching 38.3 billion VND; The Customs agency decided to prosecute 2 cases; Transferred to another agency to propose prosecuting 47 cases.