The Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department aims to reduce the tax arrears to 5 percent of the total budget revenues by the end of this year, Director of HCM City Tax Department Nguyen Dinh Tan stated at a 2014 tax task conference held in the city on January 9.

To obtain the target, the department will design firmer measures to reduce tax arrears, thoroughly examining all tax debt cases and dividing them into different types of tax debt.

According to Finance Deputy Minister Do Hoan Tuan Anh, extending the time to pay tax dues and a income tax reduction for businesses are quite necessary policies under the current circumstances. He also urged the tax department to enhance its inspection work to better detect tax violation cases.

A report from the HCM City Tax Department showed that the city contributed 167.65 trillion VND to the state budget in 2013, or 106.93 percent of year’s plan and up 11.83 percent against the previous year.

However, the city posted tax arrears of 17.3 trillion VND last year, of which the recoverable debts were over 13 trillion VND; debts claimed to be adjusted valued were 1.2 trillion VND; and bad debts were 143 billion VND.

In 2013, the tax department inspected 54,000 businesses with tax violation signs and collected 13 trillion VND from them. The department also worked with other 230 businesses on their exaggerated losses and collected 2.3 trillion VND of tax.-VNA