Minister of Finance Ho Duc Phoc said that the tax and fee rates in airline tickets are collected by the Ministry according to regulations and are very small.
On the morning of May 23, discussing the economic and social situation in groups, National Assembly deputies said that it is necessary to clarify the reasons for the high ticket prices and find solutions to stabilize them. Because high ticket prices reduce travel demand, affecting jobs in the tourism and hotel industries.
Sharing on the sidelines of the National Assembly, Minister of Finance Ho Duc Phoc said that the tax and fee rates in airline tickets are collected by the Ministry according to regulations, and are very small.
In fact, according to surveys, taxes and fees collected by airlines account for 10-30% of the total cost of airfare and have remained almost unchanged over the past period.
In particular, the airlines collect value-added tax for the state budget, which is managed by the Ministry of Finance. As for fees, such as airport fees and security screening, the airlines collect on behalf of the Vietnam Airports Corporation (ACV), which is managing and operating more than 20 airports nationwide. The security screening fee is fixed at VND20,000 (including value-added tax ) per adult passenger and VND10,000 for children.
In the field under the Ministry of Finance's responsibility, Mr. Phoc said, only 8-10% value added tax and corporate income tax are collected from airlines. These amounts account for a small proportion of the airfare.
"Taxes and fees are a few cents in the airfare, and how much is a lot? We need to understand that the fees that people say make up a large proportion of the airfare are service fees such as parking fees, airport fees... managed by the transportation sector," the head of the finance sector explained.
The Minister of Finance also made it clear that taxes and fees are budgetary. Currently, many countries want to increase public resources by increasing tax rates. For example, at the recent APEC Finance Conference, the policy of the Finance Ministers of the countries was to increase public financial strength by increasing taxes to deal with population aging and epidemics.
In Vietnam, over the past 4 years, the Government has introduced many policies to exempt, reduce, and defer taxes and fees worth about 200,000 billion VND per year to ease people's burden.
Regarding airfares, the National Assembly's Economic Committee recognized that the increase in airfares has a negative impact on domestic tourism growth, which was clearly demonstrated during the recent April 30 - May 1 holiday, when localities benefiting from the expressway infrastructure system such as Thanh Hoa welcomed a record high number of visitors, while localities that depend mainly on air routes such as Phu Quoc recorded a decrease in domestic visitors.
Discussing in groups, many National Assembly delegates also expressed concern about the high price of air tickets, affecting tourism and economic recovery.
According to delegate Bui Hoai Son, standing member of the State Committee for Culture and Education, it is necessary to clarify the reasons for the high ticket prices and solutions to stabilize them. Because high ticket prices reduce travel demand, affecting jobs in the tourism and hotel industries.
Mr. Son compared flights of similar length in Thailand, the ticket price is cheaper than in Vietnam. For example, from Bangkok to Phuket, nearly 869 km, the ticket price of Air Asia is 768,000 VND, Thai JetAir is 796,000 VND, Thai Airways is 1.16 million VND. Meanwhile, Hanoi - Da Nang is 757 km long, VietJet is 1.12 million VND, Vietnam Airlines is 1.58 million VND.
"Our ticket prices are very high compared to Thailand," Mr. Son emphasized.
The reasons pointed out by delegate Son are that the Vietnamese aviation industry still lacks competitiveness; aircraft maintenance and repair costs are high and there is a lack of cooperation between aviation and tourism.
Cooperation between the aviation and tourism industries is still going strong, each person benefits from their own actions, without sharing risks, Mr. Son commented and suggested a support package for aviation to have a discount program and support service fees at the airport.
In addition, the tourism and aviation industries need to cooperate closely, offering promotional products to help reduce airfares. In the long term, Vietnam needs to invest in aircraft maintenance centers to reduce service costs in this field.
Source: https://baodautu.vn/bo-truong-bo-tai-chinh-thue-phi-trong-gia-ve-may-bay-rat-it-d215872.html
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