State budget management ensures the stability of the national currency's value.

(Baonghean) - The budget is the most important policy tool for achieving national goals, including ensuring fairness and equality in resource allocation for the sustainable development of all nations. In any country, the State Budget Law is considered the fundamental law in the institution of public financial management. The Vietnamese State Budget Law was enacted in 2002 and came into effect in 2004. The Party and State affirm that the State Budget Law must aim to improve the efficiency of the allocation, use, and management of public finances, creating momentum for the development of financial resources in society to effectively serve the goals of socio-economic development and ensure national defense and security.

Along with many new and progressive points, the 2013 Constitution includes two articles on the budget: Article 55, Chapter III and Clause 4, Article 70, Chapter V. The addition of Article 55 is particularly significant for the country's development. Article 55 stipulates: The state budget, national reserves, state financial funds, and other public financial resources are managed uniformly by the State and must be used efficiently, fairly, openly, transparently, and in accordance with the law (Clause 1). The state budget comprises the central budget and local budgets, with the central budget playing a leading role in ensuring national expenditure. State budget revenues and expenditures must be projected and regulated by law (Clause 2). Clause 3 stipulates that the national currency is the Vietnamese Dong; the responsibility of state management is to "ensure the stability of the national currency's value."

Clause 4, Article 70 of the Constitution stipulates: The National Assembly decides on the basic policies on national finance and currency; regulates, amends, or abolishes taxes; decides on the distribution of revenue and expenditure between the central and local budgets; decides on the safe limits for national debt, public debt, and government debt; decides on the state budget estimates and the allocation of the central budget, and approves the state budget final accounts.

For a sustainable national development, our people's, people-run, and people-serving rule of law state always prioritizes the management of the national budget in general and budget revenue and expenditure in particular. Budget revenue and expenditure must be carried out on the basis of law and ensure efficiency, fairness, transparency, and legality. Therefore, the two articles of the 2013 Constitution related to the budget are a very important basis for relevant sectors, especially the Tax and Customs sectors, to effectively manage tax collection, state budget revenue, and combat revenue loss, ensuring financial resources for the central and local governments.

The Law on State Budget was passed by the 11th National Assembly on December 16, 2002, and came into effect in the 2004 fiscal year. Besides its positive contribution to economic and social development and maintaining national defense and security, the Law on State Budget also has limitations that need to be amended to promote decentralization and improve budget management efficiency, in accordance with the Constitution. According to some financial experts, to put the Constitution's provisions on budget into practice, the State needs to rebuild the state budget system, overcome the previous integrated budget levels, and gradually implement a system where each level of government decides its own budget according to law. To give localities more autonomy in budget allocation and decision-making, perhaps the National Assembly should only decide on total state budget expenditures, including central and local government budget expenditures.

Local government autonomy in revenue collection could be piloted, allowing local authorities to independently determine tax rates for certain types of taxes within the tax rate framework (ceiling) set by the central government. Revenue sharing between the central and local budgets could involve specifying the percentage (%) of total revenue from excise taxes on domestic goods and services and value-added tax on domestically produced goods between the central and local budgets. In other words, this would mean an equal distribution of revenue from these two indirect taxes nationwide. Local autonomy in budget expenditure decisions should be expanded based on the principle that spending should be carried out at the level of government that most effectively provides public services. The process of budget preparation, allocation, execution, and settlement should be modernized, based on output results, and utilize a medium-term financial and budgetary plan. Finally, to improve the efficiency of state budget management, transparency and openness need to be enhanced. Inspection and supervision activities by competent authorities must be regular and unscheduled in order to improve the ability to prevent and combat corruption in this field.

According to the Law on State Budget and Decree 60/CP-2003 guiding its implementation, the central budget plays a leading role in ensuring the implementation of strategic and important national tasks such as: investment projects for the development of socio-economic infrastructure that affect the whole country or many localities, national programs and projects, important social policies, coordinating the country's macroeconomic activities, ensuring national defense, security, foreign affairs, and supporting localities that have not yet balanced their budget revenues and expenditures. Local budgets are decentralized in terms of revenue sources to ensure the proactive implementation of socio-economic development, national defense, security, and social order and safety tasks within their management scope.

Contributing to the implementation of the Constitution, when allocating and assigning the budget for socio-economic development, national defense, security, and administrative management in 2014, the Government required ensuring funding for important tasks as stipulated by law. In addition, localities need to proactively allocate funds for the dissemination and education of laws as prescribed by the Law on Dissemination and Education of Laws and implement the overall plan to simplify administrative procedures, citizen documents, and related databases for population management in the period 2013-2020. At the same time, ensure strict, economical, and effective budget spending, contributing to the achievement of socio-economic development, national defense, and security goals, and ensuring sufficient financial resources to implement social welfare policies.

Phan Nguyen