In 2024, the Provincial People's Committee assigned Ha Long City to collect 4,687 billion VND in land use fees, this source of revenue also accounts for nearly 50% of the city's total budget revenue. However, by the end of October 15, the city's land use fee revenue had only reached nearly 800 billion VND (17% of the plan and 77% compared to the same period in 2023) - a very low number compared to the assigned target.
The main reason for the low land use fee collection in Ha Long City is directly related to the revenue from the Ha Long Xanh Urban Complex project of Vingroup Corporation. In order to carry out the steps in accordance with regulations, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment hired a land price consultancy unit, the consultancy unit organized the collection of records, documents, surveys and carried out the valuation process. However, on August 26, 2024, the consultancy unit issued a written report, requesting to refuse, terminate and liquidate the land valuation contract, leading to this project not ensuring the land valuation time in 2024. The city also worked with a number of enterprises and some enterprises agreed to the policy of temporarily paying land use fees to the budget. However, the temporary payment mechanism will encounter difficulties because the Provincial People's Committee has not approved specific land prices, so the temporary payment is not in accordance with current regulations. The above problems led to the city losing 2,167 billion VND in land use fees from the project (accounting for over 40% of the city's total land use fees).
In addition, changes in mechanisms, policies and the lack of zoning plans also affect the city's land use fee collection. Specifically, from August 1, 2024, the determination of specific land prices to calculate land use fees will be implemented according to the 2024 Land Law, however, the Provincial People's Committee has not promptly issued new regulations and guidelines according to the provisions of the 2024 Land Law, so the city has not collected land use fees from the people. For auction projects, the city must wait for zoning plans to implement the next investment procedures, leading to a large amount of remaining work (investment policy, starting price, auction organization, land lease for small plots of land...) while many procedures depend on the appraisal and approval time of departments, branches and the Provincial People's Committee.
For projects that have been allocated land, the land price plan must be implemented in accordance with Decree No. 71/2024/ND-CP (dated June 27, 2024) of the Government regulating land prices, while the Provincial People's Committee has not yet issued specific regulations on indicators to determine land prices according to the surplus method (sales rate, occupancy rate...), leading to consulting units having to spend a lot of time to collect and evaluate.
Regarding the collection of land use fees for projects, in August 2024, the city organized meetings with project owners to urge debt collection. However, the projects still have many problems that have not been completely resolved.
With a series of difficulties above, Ha Long City has resolutely implemented many solutions to partly compensate for the revenue shortfall such as: Closely following the progress of auction projects with large revenue; closely following the ministries, central branches and provincial authorities on project investment policies and submission contents to ensure progress according to the set plan. For projects that have been allocated land, the city continues to coordinate with the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to speed up the progress of determining land prices of projects according to the direction of the People's Committee; promptly provide relevant documents as requested by the Department to serve the land valuation work. At the same time, continue to implement coercive measures against investors who still owe land fees in the city; Issue the third (final) notice requesting households with land use debt to pay the state budget. In case of non-payment of land use fee, the City People's Committee will issue a decision to revoke the land allocation decision in order to strive to collect land use fee in 2024 of 1,000 billion VND or more for land use fee collections from the people.
Mr. Le Huu Nghia, Head of the City's Finance and Planning Department, said: The above solutions help the city to collect an additional VND 1,700 billion, bringing the total annual land use fee revenue to over VND 2,500 billion (equal to 54% of the plan), which is still a revenue shortfall of over VND 2,100 billion). This means that if the difficulties and obstacles of the Ha Long Xanh Complex Urban Area Project are not resolved by the departments, branches and provinces, Ha Long City will have difficulty collecting land use fees according to the assigned targets. This directly affects the city's budget revenue in 2024.
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