Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung requested the General Department ofTaxation slash the tax payment time to 171 hours in 2015 at any costwhile chairing a meeting in Hanoi on March 31.

Hepointed to tax and social insurance reform as a key task of theGovernment’s master plan on administrative reform, saying a transparentmechanism and institution is significant to curb inflation.

He asked the General Department of Taxation and the Vietnam SocialInsurance to review legal documents and remove unnecessary proceduresand regulations.

The two sides need to promote theapplication of science and technology and strictly address violationswhile increasing the role of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) and itsmembers in investigation efforts.

According toMinister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung, the time required to pay taxes wascut by 370 hours as of January 1 this year, thanks to the ministry’scoordination with commercial banks to implement e-tax payment services.

As of March 25 this year, more than 97.5 percent ofactive businesses had filed their taxes with e-services and as many as40,490 businesses from 18 of 63 cities and provinces nationwideregistered to pay through e-taxes.

Meanwhile, theVietnam Social Insurance strives to cut the time required to completesocial insurance paperwork to 49.5 hours from 335 hours, in line withtime required in the ASEAN-6 countries: Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia,Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei.

It willfine-tune a database on social insurance and health insurance involvingindividuals and organisations and connecting cities and provinces inmanagement.

The Ministry of Finance coordinated withthe Ministry of Planning and Investment to build an automaticinformation connection system between the planning-investment and taxagencies while publishing information addressing tax formalitiesaccording to the one-stop-shop model used in the tax agency’s portal.-VNA