Minister on business trip gets 3 million VND/day room stay

The Ministry of Finance is drafting a Circular amending and supplementing a number of articles of Circular No. 40 dated April 28, 2017 of the Minister of Finance regulating the business trip allowance regime and conference regime of state agencies, public service units, political organizations, socio-political organizations, and associations using funds supported by the state budget.

Accordingly, ministerial-level leaders and equivalent positions can be paid a room rental rate of up to 3 million VND/day/room, instead of the current 2.5 million VND. (See details)

Tax experts point out the disadvantages personal income taxpayers have to bear

Although the tax sector has made many efforts to reform administrative procedures, and the level of digital transformation in Vietnam's tax sector is higher than many other countries in the ASEAN region, many businesses and people still encounter troubles when carrying out tax administrative procedures.

Some specific examples of the above situation were presented by Ms. Nguyen Thi Cuc, President of the Tax Consulting Association, at the workshop "Tax and healthy finance for sustainable development" on the afternoon of December 18.

In case the state budget is misappropriated by taxpayers, taxpayers will be fined, but no one has been held responsible when taxpayers and businesses are late in getting back the overpaid tax, experts shared. (See details)

Nearly 63 thousand tax inspections and audits, recommendations to handle more than 62 trillion

In 2024, the tax sector conducted 62,932 inspections and examinations at taxpayers' offices; examined 525,792 tax declarations at tax authorities. The total amount of proposed handling was VND 62,726 billion.

The data was just announced at the General Department of Taxation's Conference on summarizing tax work in 2024 and deploying tax work tasks in 2025 on the morning of December 19. (See details)

Proposal to raise the tax debt level for individuals whose exit is suspended to 50 million

Responding to the press about the regulations on tax debt thresholds and debt periods that will result in temporary suspension of exit, Mr. Hoang Thai Son, Director of the Legal Department - Ministry of Finance, said that in the latest draft decree of the Government regulating tax debt thresholds and debt periods for cases of temporary suspension of exit, the Ministry of Finance proposed to increase the overdue tax debt level of 120 days for individuals and business owners to 50 million VND, an increase of 40 million VND compared to the draft in early December 2024.

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In 2024, the General Department of Taxation issued 58,687 notices of temporary suspension of exit with a total tax debt of VND80,512 billion. Photo: Thach Thao

This new proposed level is based on comments from the media and relevant agencies received by the Ministry of Finance. (See details)

Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, new name after merging 2 ministries

The Government Office has just announced the conclusion of Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha on the merger of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE).

According to the conclusion of Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha, after the merger, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will have a unified new name, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment. (See details)

VietinBank boss appointed as Chief of Office of State Bank

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has just announced the implementation of a series of decisions by the SBV Governor on appointing leaders of a number of units.

Among these, the State Bank accepted and appointed Mr. Nguyen Dinh Vinh - Deputy General Director of Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (Vietinbank) to hold the position of Chief of State Bank Office.

On the same day, VietinBank also announced information about the dismissal of Mr. Nguyen Dinh Vinh from the position of Deputy General Director from December 18 to take on a new assignment according to the appointment decision of the State Bank. (See details)

Bank works overtime on Saturday and Sunday to support account updates before the deadline of January 1, 2025

In just a few days, bank accounts that have not been biometrically authenticated will have their online money transfers or withdrawals using QR codes suspended; bank accounts that have not updated their new chip-embedded citizen identification information will also have their transactions completely suspended from January 1, 2025.

A series of banks such as VietinBank, Agribank, Vietcombank,... said they will open transactions on weekends to support corporate/business customers to update their identification information and support individual customers to update their biometrics. (See details)

According to recommendations from banks, recently, there have been bad actors impersonating bank employees, contacting customers via phone calls, text messages, making friends via social networks such as Zalo, Viber, Facebook... asking customers to provide personal information, bank account information, citizen identification card images and possibly requesting video calls to collect more of the customer's face, voice, and gestures.

This is a form of fraud for customers to download files containing malware and spyware to exploit more customer information. (See details)

OceanBank officially renamed

According to Decision No. 741 of the Banking Inspection and Supervision Agency - State Bank, from December 18, 2024, Ocean Commercial One Member Limited Liability Bank (OceanBank) officially changed its name.

Accordingly, the new Vietnamese name of the bank is Vietnam Modern Bank Limited.
The English name was changed to Modern Bank of Vietnam Limited. The abbreviation is MBV. (See details)