Officially abolish foreign language and IT certificates for administrative civil servants

Eliminate requirements for certificates of foreign language and computer proficiency

Circular No. 02/2021 of the Ministry of Home Affairs stipulates codes, professional and technical standards and salary scales for civil servants in the administrative sector and civil servants in the clerical sector, effective from today (August 1).

All civil servant ranks in the administrative and clerical sectors no longer require certificates of foreign language and IT proficiency in their training and development standards.

Instead, only basic information technology skills and foreign language proficiency are required, depending on the requirements in the professional and technical competency standards of each position.

This change is aimed at saving costs for society, estimated to help civil servants reduce 1,000 billion VND from going to school to get foreign language and IT certificates.

Salary adjustment

From August 15, Circular 03/2021/TT-BNV of the Ministry of Home Affairs on adjusting the issue of salary increase for cadres, civil servants and public employees takes effect.

The time that cadres, civil servants and public employees serve in the military under the Law on Military Service is counted as the time to consider regular salary increases.

On the contrary, some additional cases are not counted for consideration of regular salary increase, including desertion time; probation period when serving a suspended sentence; and time off work waiting for retirement age.

The standard for regular salary increases for officials and civil servants has also been changed. Accordingly, officials and civil servants who are assessed as having completed their tasks or higher will receive regular salary increases.

Previously, the assessment level of "completing tasks but with limited capacity" was also eligible for a salary increase.

3 cases of social benefits being stopped

The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs has issued Circular 02/2021 guiding the implementation of a number of articles of Decree No. 20/2021 of the Government regulating social assistance policies for social protection beneficiaries.

Social welfare activities of social protection beneficiaries will be tightened. 3 cases will be stopped from receiving social welfare, including:

Not receiving benefits or policies continuously for 3 months or more.

Failure to comply with the request of a competent state agency to re-determine the level of disability, re-determine the eligibility for social assistance or other information serving management work.

People receiving monthly social benefits are detained for 1 month or more.

Previously, Joint Circular 29/2014 of the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs and the Ministry of Finance only regulated the temporary suspension of subsidy payments in cases where the subject did not receive the subsidy due to death, disappearance or moving out of the area.

The Circular takes effect from August 8, but the regimes and policies prescribed in this Circular are applied from July 1.

Revenue under 100 million VND/year does not have to pay value added tax and personal income tax

From August 1, Circular 40/2021/TT-BTC guiding value added tax (VAT), personal income tax (PIT) and tax management for business households and individual businesses, takes effect from August 1.

Business households and business individuals with revenue from production and business activities in a calendar year of 100 million VND or less are not required to pay VAT and personal income tax according to the law on VAT and personal income tax.

Business households and business individuals are responsible for declaring taxes accurately, honestly, and completely and submitting tax records on time; and are responsible before the law for the accuracy, honesty, and completeness of tax records as prescribed.

For business households and individuals doing business in the form of groups of individuals or households, the revenue level is from 100 million VND/year or less to determine individuals not having to pay VAT or personal income tax, determined for only 1 representative of the group of individuals or households in the tax year.