Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung requested the General Department of Taxation slash the tax payment time to 171 hours in 2015 at any cost while chairing a meeting in Hanoi on March 31.

He pointed to tax and social insurance reform as a key task of the Government’s master plan on administrative reform, saying a transparent mechanism and institution is significant to curb inflation.

He asked the General Department of Taxation and the Vietnam Social Insurance to review legal documents and remove unnecessary procedures and regulations.

The two sides need to promote the application of science and technology and strictly address violations while increasing the role of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) and its members in investigation efforts.

According to Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung, the time required to pay taxes was cut by 370 hours as of January 1 this year, thanks to the ministry’s coordination with commercial banks to implement e-tax payment services.

As of March 25 this year, more than 97.5 percent of active businesses had filed their taxes with e-services and as many as 40,490 businesses from 18 of 63 cities and provinces nationwide registered to pay through e-taxes.

Meanwhile, the Vietnam Social Insurance strives to cut the time required to complete social insurance paperwork to 49.5 hours from 335 hours, in line with time required in the ASEAN-6 countries: Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei.

It will fine-tune a database on social insurance and health insurance involving individuals and organisations and connecting cities and provinces in management.

The Ministry of Finance coordinated with the Ministry of Planning and Investment to build an automatic information connection system between the planning-investment and tax agencies while publishing information addressing tax formalities according to the one-stop-shop model used in the tax agency’s portal.-VNA