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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol.7, No.6

Publication Date: June 25, 2020

DOI:10.14738/assrj.76.8545.

Cung, N. H. (2020). Deteminants of Tax Burden in Vietnam. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 7(6) 793-800.

Deteminants of Tax Burden in Vietnam

Nguyen Huu Cung

Hanoi University of Industry

ABSTRACT

Taxation is an important tool for each country's government to regulate

the economy, distribute income fairly and contribute largely to the state

budget. Tax revenue is related to the tax burden. How to achieve tax

revenue to ensure an appropriate tax burden rate for the economy and

the people is a relatively difficult task for each country. The empirical

method is employed on a secondary time series data set during the

period 1999-2016 to determine the impact of GDP at current prices, tax

revenue, index of economic freedom on tax burden in Vietnam by using

a linear approach. The empirical results find that the relationship

between gross domestic product and tax burden is a negative sign at 1%

significant level. Tax revenue has a positive effect on tax burden at 1%

significant level. Economic freedom index has a positive effect on tax

burden at 1% significant level. Based on the findings, the article

recommends that Vietnam continues to seek positive solutions to

enhance the economic growth rate, reducing tax revenue through the

transfer of some socio-economic development tasks to the private

sector which may be undertaken, strongly equitizing state-owned

enterprises, retaining a number of businesses with economy regulatory

function and social security.

Keywords: Tax revenue; Tax burden; Economic growth.

INTRODUCTION

Taxes are a major revenue source of the state budget, so the existence of taxes is tied to the existence

of the state. What is the tax? Based on McLure’s definition that has been posted on the Wikipedia,

a tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed upon a taxpayer (an

individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government

spending and various public expenditures (Charles E. McLure Jr., 2015). This means that the

payment of taxes to the government is mandatory for all citizens and organizations, and is a cost of

production, consumption, or taxes on income, in order to increase the budget revenue is spent

mainly for public benefits. Based to the Investopedia’s definition: “Taxes are involuntary fees levied

on individuals or corporations and enforced by a government entity - whether local, regional or

national - in order to finance government activities. In economics, taxes fall on whomever pays the

burden of the tax, whether this is the entity being taxed, like a business, or the end consumers of the

business's goods.” The taxable income is the remaining income after deducting costs related to the

production and business process (Nguyen Huu Cung, 2015). Thus, this definition show that a level

of tax burden on the economy is inevitable, importantly the tax burden is consistent with the

endurance of the people and the economy. From the perspective of the author, taxes are a

compulsory transfer of income from individuals and legal entities to the state according to the

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Cung, N. H. (2020). Deteminants of Tax Burden in Vietnam. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 7(6) 793-800.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.76.8545 794

extent and duration prescribed by law for public use. According to Liu et al. (2012), tax policies have

been applying in countries in two fairly obvious trends: Firstly, the tax burden is excessive, the state

budget revenue increases rapidly, but it causes great losses to the economy, exceed the endurance

of the economy, and consequently, the production of the whole society falls below its potential.

Secondly, reduce the tax burden to increase savings, investment, aggregate demand, accumulate

capital to expand production scale, but the first time the state budget will be reduced. From the

above definitions express the role of taxes that taxes are one of the important and indispensable

regulatory tools on the social and economic development of each country both in developed and

developing countries (Nguyen Huu Cung, 2019).

Back to history, the study of the tax burden was first conducted by the agronomic economists in

France. However, it was not until after World War II that this became a research field attracting the

participation of many economists. Analyzing the impact of taxes to show who really bears the tax

burden. More specifically, an analysis of the tax burden is the consideration of which taxable

population groups in society suffer more from the enactment of a tax law. A nominal statutory

taxpayer may not be the one who actually bears the tax burden if could transfer the tax burden on

others. In general, there are two types of tax burdens distinguished by economists including initial

and final tax burdens. The initial tax burden is the ones who contact tax authorities to pay taxes. The

final tax burden is the ones who actually bear the tax, although to be unlikely that the person

contacting the tax authority to pay taxes is taxable persons. For taxes with progressive tax rates,

persons with higher incomes or more assets are more taxable persons. As for taxes with regressive

tax rates, persons with lower incomes or fewer assets are more taxable persons.

In Vietnam, tax policies for production, trading and consumption was applied for a long time. But

like other countries in the first stage of development, Vietnam's tax system was still not complete

compared to many other countries. The amendment and adjustment of existing tax laws and the

promulgation of new tax laws in line with the development of the socioeconomic and the awareness

of the government are constantly. Untill now, with the continuous socio-economic development and

deep integration into the world economy, Vietnam has always been aware and acted on perfecting

the tax system based on the application of experiences learned from other countries, especially

more developed countries. However, the demand for budget capital for economic development in

developing countries in general and Vietnam in particular is so large in the early stages of

development due to the low accumulation of private capital, meanwhile, the loss of tax revenues

and waste in the use process has occurred due to the management capacity to be not high. As a

result, tax revenue has been becoming a major source of revenue for the government, at the same

time the high tax burden to be inevitable. In the 2012 Macroeconomic Report of Vietnam (National

Assembly's Economic Committee, 2012) asserted that the proportion of tax and fee revenues was

increasing in Vietnam. The total state budget revenue was quite stable in the period of 2007-2011

at about 29% of GDP, tax and fee revenues about 26.3% of GDP, 21.6% of GDP (excluding crude oil).

The report also asserted that Vietnam's taxes and fees (except for crude oil) was already very high

compared to other countries in the region (Nguyen Huu Cung, 2015). Evidence for this assertion is

that with average data of the 2007-2011 period, Vietnam's taxes and fees over 20% of GDP, China

17.3%, Thailand and Malaysia approximately 15.5%, Philippines 13%, Indonesia 12.1%, and India

only 7.8%. In an article posted on the web portal of the Ministry of Finance on July 29, 2019 with

the title "Restructuring state budget revenues in Vietnam", the annual average in the period of 2016

- 2018, the total state budget revenue reached 24.91% of GDP, higher than the annual average in

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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol.7, Issue 6, June-2020

the period of 2011-2015 (23.57% of GDP). In particular, revenue from taxes, fees and charges

estimated to reach 20.4% of GDP in 2016, 20.2% of GDP in 2017, 22.21% of GDP in 2018.

As mentioned above, there have been some research results in other countries and Vietnam on tax

burden, tax burden distribution, tax burden transfer. However, research on the factors affecting the

tax burden and the impact of each factor on the tax burden in Vietnam is still a new issue. If the

research results on this issue are significant, Vietnam's tax policies would be able to aim to the

optimal tax burden, ensuring the goals: (1) increasing state budget revenues; (2) stimulating

economic growth; (3) equitable income distribution. The purpose of this paper is to identify the

determinants of Vietnam's tax burden, and to clarify the influence of each factor on Vietnam's tax

burden.

LITERATURE REVIEWS

The state budget is formed primarily from tax revenues to meet the government's spending needs

for socio-economic development in each period (Nguyen Huu Cung et al, 2013). Taxe collection

creates a tax burden for businesses and citizens, but whoever is more burdened depends on the

establishment of tax regimes. In a broad sense, the effect of taxes not only consider who would bear

tax burden but also pay attention on who would receive benefits from the expenditures funded by

tax revenues (Su and Bui, 2009). Therefore, it is impossible to determine absolute tax justice, even

the optimal tax theory provides so little empirical evidence to determine reasonable tax rate for

each country.

An increase in tax revenue could create an increase in tax burden and even a burden that is beyond

the tolerance of businesses and individuals, resulting in an excessive tax burden that would reduce

tax revenue in future due to the reduction of private investment and the increase of public

investment, and the fact proves that reduces the social investment efficiency, which restraints

economic growth, and of course this paradox is consistent with the Laffer curve. Empirical evidence

shows that tax revenue has a close relationship with the tax burden. The overall tax burden is

constituted by the component tax burden, meaning that a tax system consisting of many different

taxes and each tax creating a corresponding tax burden ratio. An empirical study on the comparison

of the individual income tax burden between Vietnam and China in the period of 2002-2011, the

results show that annual average in the period of 2002-2008, Vietnam’s individual income tax

burden was nearly 0.57% and lower than China, but higher than China in 2010 – 2011 when

ordinance on individual income tax for high-income earners was upgraded to law on indivudal

income tax (Nguyen Huu Cung et al., 2013). The study also finds that the excess burden of Vietnam’s

individual income tax seems to exist, due to taxable income and family allowances did not change

with changes in macroeconomic indicators such as economic growth, inflation rate, interest rate,

cost of living and others, therefore, law on individual income tax was revised in 2013. Annual

average in the period from 2002 to 2011, macro tax burden rate of Vietnam and China is

respectively 20.74% and 18.17% (Liu et al, 2012; Nguyen Huu Cung, 2015). Another study finds

that said that an excess burden of taxation is the efficiency cost, or deadweight loss, associated with

taxation (James R. Hines Jr., 2007).

Tax-induced reductions in economic efficiency are known as deadweight losses or the excess

burdens of taxation, the latter signifying the added cost to taxpayers and society of raising revenue

through taxes that distort economic decisions (Alan J. Auerbach et al., 2001). Robert Carroll (2009)