Two streams of opinion
At the meeting, presenting a summary report on a number of major issues in explaining, accepting and revising the draft amended Law on Value Added Tax, Chairman of the National Assembly's Finance and Budget Committee Le Quang Manh said that regarding the proposal not to transfer fertilizers and agricultural machinery and equipment from the non-taxable category to the 5% taxable category, there were two viewpoints in the Standing Committee of the Finance and Budget Committee.
The first viewpoint suggests keeping the current regulations because VAT is an indirect tax, the person who bears VAT is the final consumer. If fertilizer is changed to a 5% tax rate, farmers (fishermen) will be greatly affected because fertilizer prices will increase when VAT is applied, leading to an increase in the cost of agricultural products, contrary to the spirit of encouraging agricultural, farmer and rural development according to Resolution No. 19-NQ/TW.
The second viewpoint is consistent with the content of the draft Law and the drafting agency, because Law No. 71/2014/QH13, which moves fertilizers from being subject to 5% tax to not subject to VAT, has created a major policy inconsistency, adversely affecting the domestic fertilizer production industry over the past 10 years. The return to applying the 5% tax rate will have certain impacts on the selling price of fertilizers on the market, increasing the cost of imported fertilizers (currently accounting for only 26.7% of the market share); at the same time, reducing the cost of domestically produced fertilizers (currently accounting for 73.% of the market share); fertilizer production enterprises will be refunded tax because the output tax (5%) is lower than the input tax (10%) and the state budget will not increase revenue due to having to offset the increased revenue from imports with tax refunds for domestic production.
Domestic enterprises have room to reduce selling prices if the prices of fertilizers and input materials in the international market do not change. In addition, fertilizers are currently a product subject to price stabilization, so if necessary, when there are large fluctuations in prices in the market, state management agencies can implement necessary management measures to stabilize them at a reasonable level.
"The majority of opinions in the Standing Committee of the Finance and Budget Committee lean towards the first point of view," said Mr. Manh.
According to Mr. Nguyen Truong Giang - Deputy Chairman of the Law Committee of the National Assembly, the current Law stipulates that fertilizers are not subject to tax, not 0%. Because they are not subject to tax, they cannot deduct or refund input tax for businesses. From this reality, businesses propose to impose a 5% tax to refund corporate tax. And according to the argument of the drafting committee, from there, the selling price of fertilizers on the market can be reduced.
“We have reviewed the entire impact assessment report of the drafting committee. If a 5% tax is imposed on fertilizers, the State will collect about 5,700 billion VND each year. Of which, businesses will receive a tax refund of 1,500 billion VND; the State budget will collect 4,200 billion VND. It is not convincing to say that farmers collect 5,700 billion VND and say that the selling price has decreased,” said Mr. Giang, while suggesting that a closer assessment must be made because cost price and selling price are two different issues. Because the selling price also depends on the world. “If a 0% tax is imposed on fertilizers, businesses will still receive a tax refund from the State budget. Thus, the State budget will lose 1,500 billion VND/year. According to the growth rate, it could reach 2,000 billion VND/year, but the selling price of farmers will be stable and not increase,” Mr. Giang suggested.
Chairman of the National Assembly's National Defense and Security Committee Le Tan Toi also said that he met with voters in Long An province and received calls from many provinces in the Mekong Delta. Accordingly, farmers said that the fertilizer tax did not support farmers.
According to Mr. Toi, people have reflected that only farmers who have conditions for concentrated, high-quality production can make a profit. But the majority of people in the Mekong Delta still produce on a household basis, so normally, production is difficult. "Agricultural production is already difficult, now if we tax farmers, they will abandon their fields or have the opposite reaction. The rural security situation will be complicated," Mr. Toi said and suggested that the drafting committee and the review agency support from the perspective of protecting farmers' production and rural security.
Fire prevention concerns for high-rise apartment buildings
On the same day, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave opinions on a number of major issues of the draft Law on Fire Prevention, Fire Fighting and Rescue. Reporting at the meeting, Mr. Le Tan Toi, Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee for National Defense and Security, said that some opinions proposed to add separate regulations on conditions to ensure fire prevention and fighting safety for facilities, houses, individual houses, especially houses combined with production and business, accommodation houses, high-rise buildings, apartment buildings, and large urban centers. There were opinions suggesting to separate this article into 2 articles regulating fire prevention and fighting for houses and houses combined with production and business. At the same time, add regulations and breakthrough solutions in fire prevention for this type of business, especially houses combined with production and business.
In response to the opinions of the National Assembly deputies, the Standing Committee of the National Defense and Security Committee coordinated with the drafting agency to study and separate this content into two articles: Article 18 on fire prevention for residential houses; and Article 19 on fire prevention for residential houses combined with business. At the same time, supplementing more fully and appropriately the provisions for these two types in the draft Law has been accepted and revised, ensuring the requirements on safety conditions for fire prevention, fire fighting, and escape.
Chairman of the National Assembly's Economic Committee Vu Hong Thanh also said that it is necessary to supplement regulations on fire prevention and fighting for high-rise apartment buildings. Because fire prevention and fighting equipment such as helicopters are not available, and the fire fighting ladder only reaches the 20th floor. We need regulations to prevent and stop incidents from happening, because if an incident does happen, it will be very difficult to fix.
Agreeing with the separation of this content into 2 articles: Article 18 on fire prevention for residential houses; Article 19 on fire prevention for residential houses combined with business, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man said that in recent practice, residential houses combined with business did not meet the conditions to ensure fire prevention and fighting, so this time Article 19 clearly stipulates fire prevention for residential houses combined with business. "In fact, recent fires of this type have given us many valuable lessons. Therefore, it is necessary to summarize and include them in the Law to minimize fires and the consequences when fires occur" - the National Assembly Chairman stated.
Source: https://daidoanket.vn/nong-voi-thue-suat-mat-hang-phan-bon-10288090.html
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