At the regular Government press conference on the afternoon of August 30th, Deputy Minister of Finance Vu Thi Mai informed about some changes in tax laws that the public have recently been paying attention to, including value added tax (VAT).
The result of the General Statistics Office of Vietnam's survey on living standard in 2014 reveals that the lowest income group spend 59% of their income to buy food, pay for healthcare and education; while the figure for the rich stands at 39%.
In order to clarify the question about the increase level of VAT that poses negative impact on poor and low-income people, Ms. Vu Thi Mai said:
"These essential items are mainly subjected to nontaxable and lowtaxable ones. In particular, health belongs to the former and food is among the latter."
"Other agricultural commodities are subject to a low tax rate of 5%, recently proposed to increase to 6%. Therefore, it is expected that the increase in VAT will not affect the poor and low income people," Deputy Minister of Finance added.
According to the Deputy Minister, the Government offers support policies in education, health, electricity, housing for poor people as well as many other welfare policies.
