Officers of Vung Ang Customs Branch supervise and inspect exported steel products at Son Duong deep-water port. Photo: H. Nu

Many positive factors

According to the Director of the Import-Export Duty Department Le Nhu Quynh, in 2024, the number of newly established enterprises rose in both quantity and registered capital. Therefore, the country's import-export turnover increased by 15.4% year-on-year and the total taxable import-export turnover grew 15.3% year-on-year. Notably, the import turnover of some groups of goods contributing large revenue surged, leading to the increase in revenue in 2024 compared to the same period last year.

Specifically, the import turnover of raw materials, machinery, equipment and spare parts for production increased by 18.3% to US$72 billion compared to the same period in the previous year, accounting for 55% of the total taxable import turnover, leading to the growth of the state revenue of about VND32,500 billion.

The volume of coal products reached 58.5% million tons, worth US$7.1 billion, up 26.7% in volume and 8.2% in value, increasing the revenue by about VND2,600 billion; the volume of imported crude oil reached 12.3 million tons, worth US$7.5 billion, up 24.2% in volume and 19.4% in value, increasing the revenue by about VND3,800 billion.

However, Director Le Nhu Quynh said that some commodity groups account for large proportion but the revenue from these items dropped compared to the same period in the previous year such as: petroleum products at 7.4 million tons, worth US$5.7 billion, down 2.4% in volume and 9.5% in value, reducing the revenue by about VND3,200 billion; milk and dairy products down 2.5% in value, reducing the revenue by about VND200 billion.

Notably, in 2024, the continuously increasing exchange rate is also one of the reasons for the increase in tax revenue from imported and exported goods, it is estimated that the whole year's increased revenue due to the exchange rate is about VND20,000 billion. In addition, on December 28, 2023, the Government continued to reduce VAT on a number of items under Decree No. 94/2023/ND-CP, reducing the revenue from VAT in 2024 by about VND 19,000 billion.

However, in order to drastically implement solutions to facilitate trade, improve the effectiveness of state management, and prevent revenue loss in implementing the revenue collection, the General Department of Vietnam Customs issued Directive 371/CT-TCHQ.

Accordingly, the General Department of Vietnam Customs requests provincial and municipal customs departments to strengthen the fight against revenue loss through inspection, supervision, and control of quantity, weight, type, name of goods, tax policies to identify high risk commodity groups, items in declaring quantity, weight, type, name of goods and classify high risk import-export enterprises into the Yellow and Red channels to inspect at the customs clearance to prevent the false declaration of quantity, weight, type and name of goods for trade fraud, tax evasion, etc.

The GDVC also directs the units to review and assess the risk level and conduct inspections of cases of tax exemption, reduction, refund, non-collection, non-taxation for export processing and manufacturing enterprises and other enterprises on the basis of checking documents of tax exemption, reduction, refund, non-collection, non-taxation; review, classify, collect and handle tax debts arising before January 1, 2024, and prevent new debts arising in 2024. Currently, the amount of collected tax debts is VND738.8 billion.

Accelerating in 2025

Director Le Nhu Quynh said that in 2025, the General Department of Vietnam Customs was assigned the revenue target of VND411,000 billion by the National Assembly under Resolution No. 159/2024/QH15 dated November 13, 2024; the 2025 estimate is built on the basis of GDP growth of 6.5-7%; crude oil price of US$75 - 80/barrel.

In order to accelerate the completion of the revenue collection in 2025, Director Le Nhu Quynh said that the Customs needs to focus on three goals to accomplish the task.

The Customs needs to strengthen the fight against revenue loss through inspection and supervision of customs procedures, tax management, post-clearance audit, specialized inspection, internal inspection, prevention of smuggling and trade fraud; focus on building laws on tax policies and tax management.

Specifically, in 2025, the Customs needs to focus on assessing amendment to the Law on Export-Import Tax, and Law on Tax Management to propose the completion of the Law.

To effectively manage taxes, departments under the General Department of Vietnam Customs need to thoroughly research the centralized customs clearance model, tax operations associated with customs clearance, tax management procedures linking information with customs clearance to ensure synchronization, as a basis for digitizing documents and automating customs procedures.

Local customs units also need to base on the characteristics of the management area, determine appropriate solutions for assigning tasks, and gradually improve the conditions to ensure the centralized customs clearance model at the regional level.

On May 31, 2023, the Government issued Decree 26/2023/ND-CP stipulating the Preferential Export Tariff, the Special Preferential Import Tariff and 17 decrees stipulating the Special Preferential Import Tariff to implement the Free Trade Agreements for the period 2022 - 2027. Accordingly, the average tax rate in 2022 is 14.8%; in 2023 is 10.1%; in 2024 is 9.6%; in 2025 is 8.4%; in 2026 is 8% and in 2027 is 7.5%. Meanwhile, in reality, the average import tax rate in 2023 reached 2.12%, but dropped 1.61% in 2024 due to the implementation of international commitments on tax reduction. Therefore, the reduced revenue due to the implementation of FTAs is expected to be about VND 14,000 billion.

The amendment of Decree 59/2018/ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 08/2015/ND-CP in the direction of abolishing the regulation on on-site import and export at Point c, Clause 1, Article 35 of Decree 08/2015/ND-CP will reduce the state revenue by about VND10,000 billion/year. In 2025 alone, the import tax refund for this type is estimated at about VND3,500 billion for declarations registered in 2024.

On October 17, 2024, the US Department of Commerce (DOC) initiated an administrative review of anti-dumping duties on oil country tubular goods (OCTG) from Vietnam; the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) of India initiated an anti-dumping investigation for hot-rolled steel coils originating or exported from Vietnam. This will affect imported coal and ore for steel production. Therefore, the revenue from these items in 2025 is expected to decrease by about VND12,500 billion, Director Le Nhu Quynh said.

It is expected that the VAT rate on some products will be fell from 10% to 8%, reducing the revenue in the first 6 months of 2025 by about VND9,000 billion.