Overview of the 2023 Tax - Customs Forum with the theme "Digital transformation of the Tax and Customs sector, facilitating people and businesses", on the afternoon of November 8 in Hanoi.

The information was just released at the 2023 Tax - Customs Forum with the theme "Digital transformation of the Tax and Customs sector, facilitating people and businesses" on the afternoon of November 8, co-organized by Vietnam Financial Times in collaboration with the General Department of Taxation, General Department of Customs, and Vietnam Federation of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).

Over the past years, the Ministry of Finance has pioneered the application of information technology and modernization in the management field, helping to increase efficiency and transparency in financial and budgetary management, moving towards an advanced and modern digital finance system, effectively serving the development of e-Government and Digital Government.

For the past 7 consecutive years, the Ministry of Finance has always been at the top of the rankings in terms of readiness for the development and application of information and communication technology (ICT Index). In terms of rankings according to the DTI digital transformation assessment index, in 2022, the Ministry of Finance will be in the top 2 among ministries and sectors providing public services.

The positive results in digital transformation of the Finance sector have been highly appreciated by people, businesses and organizations. In particular, the tax and customs sectors have always been pioneers in implementing digital transformation with impressive results such as: The electronic tax declaration system has been deployed in 63/63 provinces and cities and 100% of affiliated tax departments; over 99% of enterprises use electronic tax declaration, payment and refund; in the customs sector: 250 administrative procedures are carried out through the national single window mechanism...

Data construction and management platforms are built to enhance compatibility between information infrastructures of state agencies, facilitating electronic transactions between state agencies and between state agencies and organizations and individuals; ensuring the sharing of data of the finance sector with other ministries, sectors and localities that need to exploit and use it...

With the requirement of striving to form a comprehensive, modern and diverse digital financial ecosystem in all fields, the Minister of Finance issued Decision 1484/QD-BTC dated July 27, 2022 approving the Digital Transformation Plan of the Ministry of Finance to 2025, with a vision to 2030. In particular, the Ministry of Finance has chosen October 10 every year as the Digital Transformation Day of the Ministry of Finance to accelerate the implementation of the Ministry of Finance's digital transformation tasks.

The digital transformation results of the Tax and Customs sector have effectively contributed to the implementation of budget collection tasks, promoting socio-economic development, improving the investment and business environment, enhancing local and national competitiveness, and creating favorable conditions for people and businesses.

Speaking at the opening of the Forum, Editor-in-Chief of Vietnam Financial Times Pham Thu Phong said: In 2023, the task of national digital transformation in general and digital transformation of the financial sector in particular is very heavy, requiring high determination, great efforts, drastic, effective, proactive actions and making good use of the opportunities of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, establishing a modern, public, transparent digital financial platform, forming a digital financial ecosystem that comprehensively meets the needs of public financial transactions, the needs of exploiting and using digital information of the Government, people, businesses and organizations.

According to Mr. Pham Thu Phong, the Forum is an opportunity for the Tax and Customs authorities to send a message about continuing digital transformation and modernizing State management in the next phase, with the motto of taking people and businesses as the center of service.

"At the same time, through the Forum, experts, scientists, especially the business community pointed out the shortcomings and proposed and recommended policies and solutions to comprehensively modernize the financial sector, continuing to have more solutions to promote the transformation of the way of serving people and businesses in line with the Government's digital transformation roadmap, reducing costs, increasing business productivity, creating convenience, helping people and businesses participate more in the activities of the Ministry of Finance to jointly create value, benefits, satisfaction, trust and increasing social consensus", Mr. Phong emphasized.

Sharing at the Forum, Mr. Dang Ngoc Minh, Deputy General Director of the General Department of Taxation, said that in recent years, the Tax sector has always strived to reform and modernize management, from perfecting the legal environment to developing infrastructure, providing electronic tax services in an integrated and centralized direction, meeting the requirements of e-Government, towards digital Government.

“With the motto of taking people and businesses as the center of service, the Tax sector has been implementing many projects and tasks of applying information technology in tax management and comprehensive digital transformation. The General Department of Taxation identifies the strategic goal of providing electronic services and support tools for people and businesses to help them participate in the digital transformation process,” said Mr. Dang Ngoc Minh.

To achieve the success of digital transformation in the Tax sector, the decisive factors are the attention and close direction of the leaders of the Government, the Ministry of Finance, the General Department of Taxation and the participation of the entire tax system with synchronous solutions from the development and completion of policy documents, operations; organizational structure, management processes to the application of information technology (IT) in tax management. Along with that is the companionship of taxpayers in digital transformation, thereby creating a driving force to promote the development and success of digital transformation in the Tax sector.

In the customs sector, to date, all core customs procedures are completely carried out electronically with 100% of customs units nationwide; 99% of enterprises participating, processing more than 99.6% of customs declarations, with green channel clearance time of only 1 - 3 seconds.

In order to serve the people and businesses, the Customs sector has provided 200/236 online public services at levels 3 and 4, accounting for 84.7% of the administrative procedures performed by the Customs; of which 194 online public services at level 4 include core administrative procedures related to customs clearance of imported and exported goods. The Customs has also completed the integration of 72 online public services in the customs sector onto the National Public Service Portal.

Mr. Nguyen Bac Ha, Head of the Membership and Training Department, VCCI, said that surveys assessing the level of business satisfaction with the Tax and Customs sector showed that the business community recognized the high determination and innovative spirit of the leaders of the Ministry of Finance, the General Department of Taxation and the General Department of Customs in building and reforming appropriate management models, applying science, technology and information technology.

According to Mr. Nguyen Bac Ha, these reforms have created favorable conditions to support people and businesses in completing administrative procedures, reducing the direct transaction process between Tax and Customs officials and people and businesses, and the rate of administrative procedures via online platforms is increasing...

Dr. Can Van Luc assessed that the tax and customs reform and management strategy has been issued specifically and this shows that the Tax and Customs sectors have had methodical strategies. In particular, very important indicators on digital transformation have also been outlined, such as 85% of individuals will declare and pay taxes electronically, these are positive numbers.

"To promote the digital transformation of tax and customs, it is necessary to have strategies, processes, additional automation and to minimize risks in errors and operations. In addition, there are technological solutions, choosing which type of technology and how to invest in technology appropriately. This is a problem that needs to be calculated very carefully, associated with stories about technology and cybersecurity, because this is a very important issue and has a great impact", expert Can Van Luc suggested.