State budget management ensures stable value of national currency

(Baonghean) - The budget is the most important policy tool to achieve national goals, including ensuring fairness and equality in resource allocation for the sustainable development of every country. Any country when talking about the State Budget Law (NSNN) is considered the original law in the institution of public financial management. Since 2002, the State Budget Law of Vietnam was born and took effect in 2004. Our Party and State affirm that the State Budget Law must aim to improve the efficiency of the process of allocating, using and managing public finance, creating motivation for the development of financial resources in society to effectively serve the goals of socio-economic development, ensuring national defense and security.

Along with many new and progressive points, the 2013 Constitution has 2 articles on the budget, including Article 55, Chapter III and Clause 4, Article 70, Chapter V. In which, a new Article 55 is added, which is of great significance to the development of the country. Article 55 stipulates: The state budget, national reserves, state financial funds and other public financial resources are uniformly managed by the State and must be used effectively, fairly, publicly, transparently and in accordance with the law (Clause 1). The state budget includes the central budget and local budgets, in which the central budget plays a leading role, ensuring the spending tasks of the country. State budget revenues and expenditures must be estimated and prescribed by law (Clause 2). And Clause 3 stipulates that the national currency is the Vietnamese Dong; the responsibility of state management is to "ensure the stability of the value of the national currency".

Clause 4, Article 70 of the Constitution: The National Assembly decides on basic national financial and monetary policies; regulates, amends or abolishes taxes; decides on the division of revenues and expenditures between the central budget and local budgets; decides on the safe limits of national debt, public debt and government debt; decides on the state budget estimates and allocation of the central budget, and approves the state budget settlement.

For a country, a country of sustainable development, our rule of law State of the people, by the people and for the people always attaches importance to 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 the law and ensure efficiency, fairness, publicity, transparency and compliance with the law. Thereby, the two articles of the 2013 Constitution related to the budget are a very important basis for related sectors, directly the Tax and Customs sectors, to effectively manage tax collection, state budget collection and prevent budget loss, ensuring financial resources for the Central and local governments.

The State Budget Law was passed by the 11th National Assembly on December 16, 2002, effective from the 2004 budget year. In addition to the law's implementation, which actively contributes to economic and social development and maintaining national defense and security, the State Budget Law still has limitations that need to be amended in the direction of decentralization to improve management efficiency, according to the budget constitution. According to some financial experts, to put the Constitution on the budget into practice, the State needs to rebuild the State Budget system, overcome the previous interlocking budget levels, and gradually implement the budget at each level decided by that level according to the law. To create more initiative for localities in allocating and deciding on the budget, the National Assembly should only decide on total State budget expenditure, including central budget expenditure and local budget expenditure.

The autonomy of local budget revenue can be piloted to allow local authorities to decide on their own tax rates for a number of taxes within the tax rate bracket (ceiling) decided by the Central Government. The revenue is divided between the Central budget and the local budget, and the percentage (%) of total revenue from special consumption tax on domestic goods and services and value added tax on domestically produced goods between the Central budget and that of the localities can be specifically regulated. Or in other words, the budget revenue of the two indirect taxes should be divided equally throughout the country. The autonomy of localities in budget expenditure decisions should be expanded based on the principle that expenditure will be made at the level of government that directly provides public services most effectively. The process of budget preparation, allocation, implementation and settlement should be modernized, based on output results and applying a medium-term budget financial plan. Finally, to improve the effectiveness of state budget management, it is necessary to increase transparency and publicity; inspection and supervision activities of competent authorities must be regular and irregular to improve the ability to prevent and combat corruption in this field.

According to the State Budget Law and Decree 60/CP - 2003 guiding the implementation of the law, the Central Budget plays a leading role, ensuring the implementation of important strategic tasks of the country such as: investment projects to develop economic and social 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 proactive implementation of socio-economic development tasks, national defense, security and social order and safety within their management scope.

Contributing to bringing the Constitution into life, when allocating and assigning the budget for socio-economic, national defense, security, and administrative management in 2014, the Government requires ensuring funding for important tasks as prescribed by law. In addition, localities need to proactively allocate funding for disseminating and educating the law as prescribed by the Law on Dissemination and Education of the Law and implementing the overall project to simplify administrative procedures, citizen papers, and databases related to population management in the period of 2013 - 2020. At the same time, ensuring strict, economical, and effective budget spending requirements, contributing to the implementation of socio-economic development, national defense, and security goals, and ensuring sufficient financial resources to implement social security policies.

Phan Nguyen