No personal income tax breaks this year: house budget committee

Income tax payers in Vietnam will receive no tax breaks this year as the current law won’t be adjusted until next year, a member of the National Assembly's Financial and Budgetary Committee said Friday.

“The agenda of the National Assembly’s meeting this year won’t include any proposal on adjustments to the personal income tax law,” Cao Ngoc Xuyen, deputy chief of the committee, said after a meeting with the Ministry of Finance.

The ministry had proposed increasing the taxable income threshold from VND4 million (US$194) a month to VND5 million ($240), with VND1.6 million ($77.68) deductions for each dependent.

The proposal was made as many analysts and taxpayers urged the government to make amendments to the law, which was approved in late 2007 and came into effect in January 2009, considering the hardship caused to many tax payers by rising consumer prices.

They proposed higher taxable income levels and deductions for dependents. Some said even the finance ministry’s proposed threshold wasn’t high enough to ease taxpayers’ financial burdens.

Inflation surged 17.51 percent in April over a year earlier, according to the General Statistics Office.

Source: Lao Dong