Fulfillment of the State budget revenue target in 2020 of Dong Nai Customs Department is a major challenge when the growth of local revenues is no longer available, while enterprises are facing a series of difficulties due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and many main revenues have declined sharply compared to the same period last year.

Dong Nai Customs officers guide enterprises. Photo: N.H

Duplicate difficulties

According to the survey results of Dong Nai Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs on the level of losses in production and business after the Covid-19 pandemic, 269 enterprises reported that they had to terminate labor contracts, stop work and reduce working hours for nearly 112,000 employees.

Dong Nai Industrial Zones Authority also said that, in 2019 and 2020, 46 enterprises were dissolved, and investors announced the termination of operation; 61 enterprises had to suspend production. The difficulties that enterprises in the province’s industrial zones faced during the Covid-19 pandemic were mainly financial difficulties, affecting the ability to pay rent for premises and factories, for production and businesses; salaries for employees, social insurance premiums, natural disaster prevention funds; and taxes.

Regarding investment activities, according to statistics of the Industrial Zones Authority, Dong Nai province currently has 32 industrial zones established from 1994 to 2015, of which 31 industrial zones have been in operation with a total the leased land area of 6,683 hectares, of which 5,520 hectares have been leased (accounting for 82.6%);one industrial zone is under construction with the leased land area of ​​275 hectares. Thus, the area of industrial zones in Dong Nai province has been almost filled, so the future investment will not be remarkable.

In the first six months of 2020, 45 investment projects were licensed in Dong Nai province with a total investment capital of US$188.5 million. Compared to the same period in 2019, this figure decreased only one project with decreased scale and value of US$220 million. It is expected that with the complicated disease situation, in the last months of 2020, new projects will decrease significantly compared to 2019.

Make best efforts

Such a difficult context has greatly affected the State budget collection task of Dong Nai Customs Department. Especially when the area under the management of Dong Nai Customs Department has no border-gates, no international airports, imported goods are mainly tax-free goods, including imports for export production and processing and for export processing enterprises. The revenues mainly come from new investment projects or expansion of production of enterprises. Moreover, production enterprises operate stably, so the revenue does not change.

As of August 9, the total state budget revenue of Dong Nai Customs Department was only VND8,779 billion, down 23% compared to the same period last year and only reaching 45% of the 2020 estimate target. In Dong Nai, in the first six months of the year, the average revenue of the unit was VND1,243.6 billion per month, a reduction of VND364 billion compared to the average monthly receivables.

In particular, for petroleum products, Dong Thap Petroleum Trading Company Limited only paid VND6.6 billion in the first six months, down sharply by nearly VND151 billion over the same period last year. With tobacco raw materials, revenue of the Bat –Vinataba Joint Venture Company also decreased by nearly VND100 billion, only at VND38.8 billion. The reason is the reduction in the import volume and the enjoyment of special preferential tax rates due to imports from C/O countries.

Dong Nai Customs Department expects that the total state budget revenue of the unit in 2020 will only reach VND14,270 billion, equivalent to 74% of the estimated target.

According to Mr. Nguyen PhucTho, Deputy Director of Dong Nai Customs Department, from now to the end of the year, the unit will drastically take measures to facilitate trade, improve state management effectiveness, and combat revenue loss in the implementation of the State budget collection task. Specifically, Dong Nai Customs Department will strengthen anti-revenue loss through documentary inspection and physical inspection of goods, consideration of C/O's validity;pay special attention to urgent solutions of the State to support enterprises amid the pandemic; and promote measures to manage enterprises amid the Covid-19 pandemic not to incur tax debts due to the business owners fleeing from their registered business addresses or returning to their home countries.