The Department of Agriculture proposes debt restructuring!

(Baonghean)Recently, agricultural and forestry companies in the province received notices from the Land Revenue Management Department of the Tax Department demanding the collection of land lease fees for the years 2011, 2012, and 2013, totaling nearly 38 billion VND. However, these companies all stated that due to the late notification of tax collection and the fact that their annual finances had already been audited and settled by state agencies, certifying the fulfillment of their state budget obligations, they had no funds to pay.

Agricultural and forestry companies are complaining about difficulties.

Working with An Ngai - Tan Ky Agricultural Company Limited, which is currently required to pay back land lease fees of VND 1,360,862,000 for three years (2011, 2012, 2013), Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Hung – Director of the Company – stated: The agricultural land of An Ngai Agricultural Company Limited has been allocated to households and workers for stable production for decades. The land records based on the 1996 map 364 are very old. After nearly 20 years, the land situation has undergone many changes, including land transfers, orchard transfers, subdivision, changes of ownership, and encroachment on cultivated land. A new land survey map is needed to determine the exact area for calculating land lease fees. Currently, following the direction of the Department of Agriculture, the Company has reviewed the agricultural land area in Tan An and Nghia Phuc communes. However, this has not been done in Dong Van and Huong Son communes because the Department of Natural Resources and Environment has not yet completed the survey. The forest land has not yet been surveyed, so there are no land parcel maps. That's the reality; legally, the company has not yet received a land lease decision from the competent state agency, so in the land lease contracts with the households, the company does not include land rent in the contract. The households receiving land from the company for production have already paid their financial obligations in full each year, so the company cannot collect the land rent from the people for the past three years to pay the state.

Rubber processing line of Song Con Agricultural Company Limited.

Mr. Nguyen Duc Son, Director of Con Cuong Forestry Company Limited, stated: He requested that the province and the Tax Department not collect land lease fees for natural forests designated as production forests because: According to Decree 200/2004/ND-CP, forestry companies assigned to manage areas of degraded forests that are in the nurturing and restoration phase and are not yet permitted to harvest timber (the company's location is in remote areas with many ethnic minorities) receive state financial support for forest management and protection under the same mechanism as for protection forests. In reality, the company manages a fairly large area of ​​forest falling under this category and annually spends its own money on management and protection; the state has not provided any financial support. The resources on the land of natural production forests are currently managed by the state, and all activities related to forest product exploitation are also managed by the state, so the company has no source of revenue.

Mr. Ho Dinh The, from Song Hieu Forestry and Agriculture Co., Ltd., also stated that the area of ​​natural forest land managed by Song Hieu Forestry and Agriculture Co., Ltd. is 15,178.10 hectares, and currently the forest is closed with no logging activities, therefore there is no revenue. Regarding the land lease fees for 2011 and 2012, he requested that they not be collected because the company has not yet received a land lease decision, a land lease contract, or notification of the annual forest land lease payment targets. Other forestry and agricultural companies such as 3/2 and Nghe An Coffee-Rubber Company also stated that the Tax Department has issued annual notifications regarding the land lease fees (for company headquarters) and these companies have paid in full. As for the retroactive collection for the previous three years, it is impossible to collect additional fees from the people because there has been no land lease decision from the competent state agency.

We propose debt restructuring!

Faced with this "awkward" situation, on March 5, 2014, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development sent a document to the People's Committee of Nghe An province requesting the People's Committee to review the land lease fees for the years 2011-2013 of agricultural and forestry companies. Accordingly, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development affirmed that the annual collection of land lease fees from agricultural and forestry companies throughout the province was in accordance with the 2003 Land Law, as specified in Decree 142/2005/ND-CP and Circular No. 120/2005/TT-BTC guiding the implementation of Decree 142. However, because the agricultural and forestry companies only received notification from the Land Revenue Management Division of the Nghe An Tax Department in December 2013 regarding the land lease fees payable for the years 2011-2013, the total amount for these 14 units was 37,926,794,000 VND. Collecting land fees from previous years is difficult for several reasons: Companies have allocated land to households and individuals through long-term contracts, but because these contracts lacked land lease agreements with competent authorities, the companies did not include annual land lease fees for these households and individuals. Furthermore, these households have fully settled their payments according to the contracts. Simultaneously, the companies' annual financial statements have been reviewed and approved by relevant authorities, confirming their fulfillment of tax obligations to the state. Therefore, when additional land lease fees for the previous three years arose in December 2013, the agricultural and forestry companies were unable to collect them from the households and individuals, resulting in a lack of funds to pay the state.

Another reason given by the Department of Agriculture is that agricultural and forestry companies have not yet received land lease decisions and contracts from competent authorities as stipulated in Decree 142/2005 because they have not yet completed the process of preparing cadastral records, extracting land plot maps, and classifying land between the companies and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment due to a lack of funding. Therefore, they lack the legal basis to include land lease fees in the subcontracting contracts with households and individuals under Decree 135/2005/ND-CP. Consequently, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development requests the Provincial People's Committee to temporarily defer the payment of land lease fees for the years 2011, 2012, and 2013 for these agricultural and forestry companies.

Thus, it can be seen that although legal, the delay in notification, coupled with the lack of a land lease decision and lease contract between the state and these agencies, makes it very difficult to collect land lease fees from agricultural and forestry companies for the past three years. It is known that the Department of Natural Resources and Environment is currently re-measuring the land, creating land plot extracts and classifying the land, including the land managed by these companies. The state agencies have also not completed their part of the work, leading to delays in subsequent stages. To date, the companies and agricultural and forestry farms have not received the notification of land lease fees due for 2014, which they need to include in their production and business plans.

Pearl