Hanoi (VNA) – The Finance Ministry’s GeneralDepartment of Taxation should strive to surpass at least 3 percent of the Statebudget estimate of more than 1,070,200 billion VND (55.88 billion USD), saidPrime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

He made the statement during a conference in Hanoi onJanuary 31 to review the sector’s 2017 performance and launch tasks for 2018.

The leader requested that the rate of delayed tax paymentshould be below 5 percent of the total State collection this year.

The PM asked for continuing to cut 50 percent of proceduresfor specialised inspection and 50 percent of business requirements, ensuringthat 26 percent of the total State spending will be used for developmentinvestment and 64.1 percent for regular expenditure.

To achieve the above targets, he stressed the need to speedup administrative reform by using technological advances in tax declaration,payment and management, towards scaling down payment in cash.

General Director of the General Department of Taxation BuiVan Nam said the sector asked agencies to work hard to achieve set targets,closely monitor the progress of State budget collections, and step upinspection over tax declaration and payment.

He said at least 18.5 percent of the total number ofbusinesses will be under inspection this year to prevent loss of revenue to theState budget.

Last year, the sector collected a record 1.019 quadrillionVND to the State budget, up 5.2 percent of the estimate and higher than 968.58trillion VND as assigned.

Tax agencies also conducted 103,211 inspections, or 113.65percent of the plan, collected 44.773 trillion VND in delayed tax payment,equivalent to 59.5 percent of the total as of December 31, 2016, he said.-VNA