The State Budget Law (SBL) of 2015 (replacing the State Budget Law of 2002) was passed by the National Assembly (XII session) and officially took effect from the 2017 budget year.
Article table of contents
The Law on State Budget (NSNN) stipulates that state budget revenues include all revenues from taxes and fees; all service charges collected from activities conducted by state agencies; in cases where operating expenses are contracted, deductions are allowed; service charges collected from activities conducted by public service providers and State-Owned Enterprises (DNNN) are submitted to the state budget according to legal regulations; non-refundable aid from governments of other countries, organizations, and individuals abroad to the Government of Vietnam and local authorities...
The law also explicitly states that the state budget deficit includes the central budget deficit and the provincial-level local budget deficit. The central budget deficit is determined by the greater difference between the total central budget expenditures excluding the repayment of principal debt and the total central budget revenue. The provincial-level local budget deficit is the aggregate deficit of each local province's budget, determined by the greater difference between the total provincial budget expenditures excluding the repayment of principal debt and the total provincial budget revenue of each locality.
The NSNN is managed with unified, centralized democracy, efficiency, thriftiness, transparency, and fairness; management allocation and decentralization; linking the authority with the responsibility of government management agencies at all levels.
The law requires more specific and tighter management of the financial reserve fund. The Government of Vietnam, Provincial People's Committees (UBND), and centrally-affiliated cities will establish financial reserve funds from increased revenues, budgetary surpluses, annual budgetary allocation arrangements, and other financial sources as prescribed by law. However, the balance of the financial reserve fund at each level shall not exceed 25% of the annual budget expenditure of that level.
The financial reserve fund is used in the following cases: advancing the budget to meet spending needs according to the budget expenditures when revenues are not yet concentrated timely and must be repaid within the fiscal year.
In case state budget revenues or borrowing to cover the deficit do not meet the estimates decided by the National Assembly, the People's Council, and for performing tasks of preventing and overcoming the consequences of natural disasters, catastrophes, and widespread diseases with severe levels, national defense and security tasks, and other urgent tasks arising outside the estimates, after rearranging the budget and using up the budget reserve but still not sufficient, the financial reserve fund is used to meet the spending needs, but the maximum usage in a year shall not exceed 70% of the fund's balance at the beginning of the year.
The budget will be publicly implemented, with public disclosure content including: data and explanatory reports of the state budget estimates submitted to the National Assembly, People's Council... estimates approved by competent authorities, the implementation status of the state budget and the final accounts of the state budget; the results of implementing recommendations from the state audit, except for detailed data and explanatory reports in the areas of national defense - security and national reserves.
The public disclosure of the state budget is carried out by one or several forms: announcement at meetings, posting at the office of agencies, organizations, units; publishing publications; notifying in writing to relevant agencies, organizations, units, individuals; posting on the electronic information portal; announcing through the media.
The very clear goal of the 2015 Law on State Budget is to strengthen budget discipline and transparency, efficiency in budget management. However, to ensure effective implementation of the Law, it is necessary to synchronously deploy multiple solutions such as: publicizing the state budget to meet transparency requirements in budget management and use, showing the accountability of organizations, individuals related to the state budget, meeting the reporting and supervision rights and budget information needs of organizations, individuals.
It is necessary to unify the form, process, publicizing time, and accountability of the head when requested, because these are mandatory regulations to ensure consistent and prompt implementation. Along with publicity and transparency, it is the implementation of community supervision mechanisms; this is a new content of the 2015 Law on State Budget.
To ensure the effective implementation of this mechanism, it is necessary to focus on guiding the organization and supervision work such as: the composition of supervision participants, supervision time, form of supervision, supervision content, recommendation mechanism, accountability for recommendations, and the effectiveness of recommendations through community supervision mechanisms and enhancing the supervisory capacity in budget management.
Source: baoyenbai.com.vn
