Re-organising apparatus of tax branches but need to ensure task accomplishment

The Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung

According to Minister Dung, implementing the decree of the 6th Plenum of the 12th Party Central Committee, the Party civil affairs committee of Ministry of Finance focused on directing, researching and grasping the decrees with a major impact on the finance sector such as: Decree No.18-NQ/TW about continuing reform, arranging the apparatus of political system to be streamlined and operate effectively; Decree No.19-NQ/TW about continuing reform management and organisational system, enhance quality and effective operation of Public Administrative units in corporate with implementation of Decree No.39-NQ/TW of the Politburo about streamlining and re-organising staff.

From January 1st 2018 unitl now, the Ministry of Finance has checked and arranged administrative apparatus to be streamlined, thus it has cut 2,985 administrative hubs. From that, it reduced more than 2,044 officials holding leading positions at unit level and above. According to the minister, the above result showed inital effectiveness in the reduction of intermediate level, internal management divisions and pioritise human resource for direct professional unit. Thereby, reducing the number of people in leading positions, especially at branch and team level (manager, the head of unit and the equivalent titles), refreshing the apparatus, contributing to restructuring officials of the tax sector; at the same time, linking the apparatus reform with the reform of administrative procedures, the application of information technology, modernising the sector, changing the management method to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of State management and law enforcement organisations of the financial sector, ensuring the satisfaction of the assigned political missions.

Regarding the tax system, up to now, the whole sector has arranged at 63/63 tax departments, reducing 296 tax branches. Thus, compared to the Prime Minister's request in Decision No. 41/2018/QD-TTg dated September 25, 2018, it has exceeded in both quantity and time.

“On behalf of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Finance and leaders of the Ministry of Finance, I warmly praise and appreciate the leaders of the General Department of Taxation, leaders of the Departments of Taxation and all officials and employees working at tax departments which were subject to re-arrangement and consolidation put great efforts to overcome difficulties to complete the plan in recent times. I believe that with the close guidance and consensus of provincial and municipal authorities, the consolidation of the district tax branches into the regional tax branch under the provincial tax department will be a success,” Minister Dinh Tien Dung said.

Furthermore, the Minister of Finance looks forward to continuing to receive the concentration, directives and facilitation of the Provincial Party Committees and City Party Committees so the tax department could well organise the apparatus and personnel; at the same time arrange the Party organisations of the tax department, the tax branch at district-level to be synchronous, suitable to the government organisation to perform the assigned political tasks.

At the same time, the minister also requested the Director of the General Department of Taxation to closely instruct and guide the implementation of establishing regional tax branches. If there were any arising problems outside their competence, they must promptly report for handling with the goal of early stabilising the organisation; instructing the handling of professional processes, application software management and IT infrastructure, facilities and working conditions, stabilise ideology for tax officials without affecting professional tasks to complete the assigned tasks excellently.

According to the minister, the arrangement and consolidation of tax branches would cause disturbance in the organisational structure, people, life and activities, which would affect the ideology and the mind of officials.

“I and the leaders of Ministry of Finance also understood and shared with every tax officials. However, it was suggested that the director and leaders of the tax department, leaders of units and all tax officials and employees of the provincial tax departments to creat consensus to overcome initial difficulties, implementing the arrangement, consolidation and establishment of regional tax branches, ensuring ideology, organisation and apparatus so that it would not affect the accomplishment of assigned political tasks, contributing to the reform, streamlining the organisational structure, strengthening the management work to improve the efficiency of revenue collection management in the locality,” the minister emphasised.

Regarding the "post stage" of arranging and merging tax branches, Minister Dung suggested that the tax sector must continue orienting the organisational structure of the Government agencies under the model of a multi-sector and multi-field ministry. At the same time, resolutely handle overlapping tasks between the ministries, branches and localities to ensure the principle of "each task is assigned to only one ministry which is in charge" and appropriate with the orientation of the Government’s organisational structure. On that basis, after the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party and subsequent terms, continuing to research, consolidating and restructuring the functions, tasks and apparatus of a number of ministries and ministerial-level agencies managing the field of finance and budget in the direction of unifying the focal point of budget allocation (both in expenses for investment and regular expenses).

At the Conference, Minister Dung requested the General Department of Taxation to consult international practises to continue proposing tax management models for corporations, multinational companies, large-scale enterprises and cross-border like the modern tax administration model of advanced countries in the context of continuing investment and modernisation of tax system.