Innovation in local budget management of the Red River Delta provinces

The budget revenue and expenditure have been decided by the National Assembly and assigned by the Prime Minister. The progress of budget allocation and assignment in recent years has been carried out more urgently than in previous years. Through the summary of 2005 and 2006, the quality of budget allocation and assignment has been better, ensuring compliance with norms and priority targets; Budgets have been assigned according to 4 groups of items (for regular expenditures), ensuring convenience for state management and control. 100% of provinces have implemented decisions and assigned budgets before December 31, 2005 (of which 50% implemented decisions and assigned budgets before December 10, 2005). The phenomenon of higher-level budget units and level 1 budget units retaining a part of the regular budget (in addition to tasks allowed to be retained according to the principles and regimes of subsequent allocation) for use as a reserve has been basically overcome. Provinces and cities in the Red River Delta have complied with the Government's regulations. The People's Councils have publicly announced and decided on local budget estimates and allocated provincial budgets before December 10, 2003 in accordance with the provisions of the State Budget Law.

The implementation of revenue estimates and budget allocations for each item and according to the annual budget has been carried out relatively seriously. The organization of payment allocations for service providers has had many suitable and diverse forms, ensuring to shorten time and administrative procedures, reducing inconvenience for beneficiaries.

The State Treasury of localities has affirmed its role in implementing budget expenditure control and managing the State budget fund, supervising units in implementing and complying with budget estimates, controlling expenditures in terms of conditions, standards, and spending norms. The fact that the State Treasury bases on the records, documents, and vouchers of the budget-using unit that has decided to spend to compare, check, and control whether it is in accordance with the prescribed regime, and whether it makes payment or refuses to pay the expenditure requested by the unit has made the State budget beneficiaries pay more attention and be more responsible when deciding to spend.

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The provinces have had a number of specific documents on publicizing plans, publicizing estimates of expenditures from various sources and budgets, publicizing the process of organizing and implementing procurement, publicizing settlements, regularly conducting inspections and self-inspections... promoting democracy, limiting authoritarianism, collusion, bribery and corruption. Local financial agencies and State Treasuries have coordinated quite closely in managing public assets, especially in implementing procurement through bidding, competitive bidding, limiting direct procurement or designated bidding in the procurement of equipment and assets, which has limited many loopholes and negative aspects in the use of budget funds.

The implementation of the administrative expenditure contract mechanism for administrative units and the implementation of the contract for revenue-generating units, and the expansion of the autonomy mechanism for public units have shared the burden of state budget expenditures for a long time. Many agencies have proactively rearranged their organizational structure in a streamlined manner, reducing organizational and management units in conjunction with administrative procedure reform according to the one-stop, one-stamp model; thereby rearranging the payroll, reducing those who do not meet civil servant standards. Agencies have developed tasks and functions for each department, division, and civil servant position; thereby arranging labor reasonably and assigning tasks more closely, scientifically, and clearly to each cadre and civil servant, both reducing the payroll and improving work quality and efficiency. Units implementing the contract are more conscious in using funds economically and effectively (such as implementing the development of internal spending regulations, considering sending staff on business trips and organizing conferences, not purchasing expensive assets, only purchasing really necessary assets, developing standards for office supplies, developing regulations on the use of official telephones and telephone charges, regulations on the use of electricity and electrical equipment, regulations on the use of cars for business trips... implementing savings, fighting waste to have a source to continue increasing income for staff and civil servants).

All provinces are interested in budget revenue management, especially tax management, law dissemination and propaganda, administrative reform and application of information technology in tax declaration and management, democracy and transparency, inspection and supervision, especially the strong coordination and direction against commercial fraud and tax evasion. Tax authorities at all levels have done a good job of publicly posting requirements on documents, deadlines for organizing tax administrative procedures and posting them on mass media; creating favorable conditions for all organizations and individuals to study and implement. The local tax sector has applied many measures to direct tax teams to coordinate with ward and commune authorities to strengthen supervision and grasp business households to put them under management. The management of individual business household revenue is very complicated (because the majority of business households do not apply books, accounting, invoices, and documents). The Tax Department applies many measures (such as doing a good job of establishing registers, monitoring business households and revenue, classifying by area and business line as a basis for revenue management, closely coordinating with ward and commune authorities to promote the implementation of business household accounting, publicly disclosing business household revenue and tax rates, ensuring public democracy in tax obligations of business households, stably applying tax rates for small and medium-sized businesses paying lump-sum taxes to ensure revenue to the budget, helping business households focus on production and business, reducing inconvenience for business people...) so the revenue has changed significantly.

The provisions of the Law on Tax Administration emphasize the obligations of taxpayers and respect the initiative of taxpayers in fulfilling their tax obligations. Taxpayers implement a new tax administration mechanism: self-calculation, self-declaration, self-payment of taxes and self-responsibility before the law for fulfilling their tax obligations. In general, after a short period of implementing the Law, taxpayers' awareness in tax registration, tax declaration and tax payment has improved. Tax administration agencies at all levels have been reorganized according to the tax administration model mainly by function to implement

implementing the provisions of the Law, focusing on a number of key functions: disseminating tax laws and supporting taxpayers, managing tax declarations and accounting, managing debt and handling tax arrears, and tax inspection and audit. Tax officials have been arranged, reorganized, and have been trained and retrained to improve their expertise in each field.

The coordination between tax authorities and relevant organizations and individuals has initially achieved certain results in providing information and tax management. Through the work of disseminating and popularizing the Law on Tax Management, mass media, law, banks, treasuries, credit institutions, planning and investment agencies, natural resources and environment agencies and other relevant organizations and individuals have clearly seen their responsibilities in tax management.

The Police and Tax Departments of provinces and cities have organized to disseminate and implement the Coordination Regulations; the Police force and Tax authorities have regularly exchanged information on: New policies related to taxes and the progress of criminal and administrative handling of tax violations; Cases showing signs of tax law violations (such as tax evasion, tax fraud, fleeing from business locations, illegal transportation and storage of goods, and use of illegal invoices); Exchanged information on the situation, methods and new tricks of subjects with tax violations (such as organizing the establishment of many enterprises to take advantage of buying and selling invoices to make illegal profits and then fleeing, buying invoices to legalize smuggled goods, legalizing inputs in basic construction, and building bridges and roads). The Tax Authority has promptly and fully provided the Police with information, documents and records of tax law violators, creating conditions for quickly completing investigations of cases, effectively combating tax crimes, and handling and recovering tax arrears.

timely payment of tax arrears.

Tax authorities at all levels are implementing a one-stop administrative regime for granting tax codes to business establishments. Therefore, the time

The time for granting tax registration certificates to enterprises has been shortened from 15 days to no more than 8 working days from the date the Tax Authority receives the enterprise's complete tax registration dossier.

The settlement work has been directed by the Departments of Finance and Prices of localities to be implemented in accordance with regulations. With the method of establishing from the base and synthesizing from the bottom up. After the base units have completed the settlement report, the Department of Finance and Prices of localities are responsible for synthesizing all revenue and expenditure of the local budget, comparing it with the revenue and expenditure implementation report of the State Treasury, the Tax Department and establishing the official settlement report on the state budget revenue and expenditure in the area to send to the People's Council, People's Committee of the same level and at the same time send it to the higher-level financial agency in accordance with regulations.

2.3.2. Limitations and causes

2.3.2.1. Limitations

In recent years, the socio-economic development of the Red River Delta has made remarkable breakthroughs. However, the development of the region has not been commensurate with its potential and advantages. The economic restructuring has been slow and not closely linked to the labor restructuring. The connection, cohesion and mutual support between provinces and cities in the region have not been truly synchronous and have not met the requirements. The regional economy is still not stable . The average export turnover per capita is 67% of the national average and 20% compared to the Southeast region. Some indicators are lower than the planning target and lower than the national average. The economic growth rate is only 88% of the national average [8].

Local budget management in the provinces of the Red River Delta has not been innovated, has not covered all revenues and expenditures of the provincial, district and communal budgets; has not covered all revenue and budget beneficiaries; management methods are still manual, heavily dependent on administrative orders, procedures have not been improved, and are still troublesome for the managed subjects; budget inspection and supervision are still not strict; losses and waste are still quite large, budget management efficiency is not high, and has not had a positive impact on local socio-economic development.

The preparation of state budget revenue and expenditure estimates at all levels has not ensured high quality, is not consistent with economic growth rate and implementation of previous years' plans and policy mechanisms.

Regarding taxes and budget revenues: Tax losses in some revenues and tax rates in most localities are quite common, especially in large cities where the rate of tax losses is higher, especially in the private economic sector, many enterprises and business households have not declared the correct amount of tax payable. High income tax has not been closely monitored and there is still a phenomenon of tax losses, especially for freelancers. Tax arrears in some localities are still high, and there are still many loopholes in tax invoice management, especially in large cities. Many businesses have tax evasion and concealment of taxable income; types of invoice and document fraud often occur such as: Selling goods without writing invoices to customers; In the case of selling goods in small quantities (under 100,000 VND), there is no need to write invoices to customers but there is no retail list and no invoice at the end of each day, this is the most common method, most businesses have violations; Fraud in writing invoices, recording different sales, tax amount, name of purchasing unit, tax code on copy 1 and copy 2; recording lower selling price on invoices than actual selling price; many units commit fraud in reporting the quantity of goods purchased and sold, reporting larger inventory than actual.

Tax arrears are still quite common in localities in the region. Some localities have not yet analyzed the causes of the increase in tax arrears to have appropriate handling measures. Many tax arrears due to some organizations and individuals are still dragging their feet and have not yet been resolved.

Some enterprises take advantage of the open mechanism of the Enterprise Law to commit commercial fraud, invoice and document fraud to appropriate State money such as: selling fake invoices to legalize the goods; writing wrong names and tax codes of the selling unit and the purchasing unit, making it difficult to verify the invoices; writing goods on invoices that do not match the actual goods sold to evade taxes.

Fraudulent crimes in VAT refunds have been pushed back, but there are still many other forms with more sophisticated tricks. In particular, there is a type of crime that establishes fake enterprises that do not conduct production and business as registered, but instead buy and sell illegal invoices, helping other organizations and individuals legalize floating goods on the market, smuggled goods... to create tax refund records or increase capital costs, increase costs, evade corporate income tax, negatively affecting the business environment of legitimate businesses.

The inspection and examination have not been closely and thoroughly coordinated. Most Tax Departments only stop at notifying the names of absconding enterprises and the number of invoice serial numbers brought along, and have not yet thoroughly handled the use of invoices. In particular, there is a lack of synchronous coordination, coordination between branches within the same Department or coordination between Tax Departments to thoroughly handle the situation.

The management of tax collection for the non-state economic sector, land and housing tax, and agricultural land use tax in the recent past has many unreasonable points. In fact, the amount of money collected from these areas each year accounts for a small proportion of the total state budget revenue in the area and is not commensurate with the actual potential. The cost of organizing the apparatus of tax teams and tax collection management at the grassroots level is relatively large compared to the results obtained because in reality, it is still necessary to ensure adequate arrangement of tax officers, investment in facilities and other working conditions, causing waste and low efficiency of collection work.

Regarding the management of development investment expenditure: The field of basic construction investment is always considered a complex field, with many influencing factors, the policy mechanism is not stable, the organizational level and staff capacity of the Project Management Board are limited and uneven. On the other hand, basic construction products are single products, large scale, long production time, many agencies, many people participate in the process of creating this product, if not strictly controlled, it can easily cause waste and loss of State capital. In construction investment, many economic and technical norms have been amended and supplemented: regulations on investment and construction management, bidding regulations are continuously amended to suit the

In reality, regulations on management, use, and settlement of investment capital from the State budget have also been issued synchronously. The management of construction investment and the implementation of bidding regulations have been focused on, and the management and payment of investment capital from the State budget or originating from the State budget have been strengthened. However, in general, waste in construction investment is still a pressing issue. The quality of planning is still low, leading to planning that is not close to reality, causing waste; the management, inspection, and supervision of construction investment in some agencies, units, and localities are still lax; many construction projects have estimates that exceed the norm, construction time is prolonged, and construction quality is low. The situation of scattered investment is still quite common, causing dispersion and waste of investment capital resources, and outstanding debts in construction investment still occur frequently. Violations of bidding regulations are still common, and there is still collusion in bidding for projects and works.

Regarding regular expenditure management: The development and implementation of the budget collection and allocation plan for each item, according to the annual budget estimate, has been carried out relatively seriously. However, the development of the budget estimate in the units has not been taken seriously, so there are still many adjustments needed during the year, not creating conditions for the State Treasury to implement expenditure control, as well as the proactive budget management of the management agencies. Especially in the commune area, due to the complicated budget list, the form of monitoring allocation, payment and settlement, there are still points that are not suitable for the current level of commune-level cadres. The situation of waste in the management and use of budget funds, capital and state assets still occurs. Some agencies and units do not comply with the prescribed norms, standards and regimes, commonly: using regular expenditure funds for the wrong purposes, exceeding the norms, standards and regimes; Purchasing, equipping vehicles (especially cars exceeding standards), and loose management of asset usage.

After implementing the regulation of the state budget levels according to government regulations, only 3 provinces and cities can balance their own budgets and do not have to receive subsidies from the state budget.

Innovation in local budget management of the Red River Delta provinces - 10

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