The Ministry of Finance has issued Circular 72/2021 to revise some articles of Circular 328/2016 guiding the collection and management of revenues via the State Treasury.

The Ministry of Finance revises some regulations on management for
the State revenues via the State Treasury. Photo: Thuy Linh.

Article 1 of the circular adds the payment intermediary service providers licensed by the State Bank of Vietnam to the scope of application.

The circular also stipulates that the State Treasury at the provincial level is the State Treasury of provinces and centrally run cities, the State Treasury at district level is the State Treasury of districts, towns and cities directly under the province. The phrase “transaction office under the provincial State Treasury" is removed.

The principles of State revenue management as described in Clause 2 of Article 3 of Circular 328/2016 have been amended so that the State budget revenues must be remitted directly to the State Treasury or into the State Treasury’s account at banks, except for collection agencies or organizations authorized by the collection agency that are allowed to directly collect the State revenue as per the law.

The collection agency or organization authorized by the collection agency must fully and promptly remit revenues to the State Bank’s account opened at banks as per provisions of the Law on Tax Administration, Law on Handling of Administrative Violations and guiding documents.

Circular 72 abolishes regulations on revenue payment via banks or direct payments at the State Treasury or non-cash collection at customs checkpoints for cases in difficult areas.

The Circular revises point b and point c of Clause 1, Article 4 of Circular 328. Accordingly, it stipulates that the provincial State Treasury or the district State Treasury has authorized the revenue collection in cash but the payer still remits cash at these treasuries, those must collect cash from the payer.

The circular supplements the exclusion for economic units and organizations that have accounts at commercial banks as prescribed in Clause 1, Article 1 of Circular 136/201 amending, supplementing a number of articles of Circular 13/2017 regulating the management of collection and payment in cash through the State Treasury system.

For cases where the provincial State Treasury or the district State Treasury changes the account at the commercial bank or establishes the new State Treasury (due to division or merger of the locality), Circular 72 stipulates those must coordinate with the commercial bank where the new account is opened, to collect the revenues. The requirement on making a written request to cancel the coordination in the state revenue collection with the commercial bank where the former account is opened is also removed.