Voters are concerned about the question of whether people can buy cheap gasoline?
National Assembly Deputy Huynh Quyet Thang said that what voters are concerned about is the question of whether people can buy cheap gasoline and whether businesses will reduce costs?
Tighten supervision when applying, "block" speculation and hoarding
On the morning of April 10, continuing the first session, the 16th National Assembly, the National Assembly discussed in groups about the Draft Resolution of the National Assembly on promulgating a number of regulations on environmental protection tax, value-added tax, and special consumption tax on gasoline, oil and aviation fuel.
Contributing opinions, National Assembly delegate Le Hong Ha (Hanoi Delegation) expressed agreement with the Government's Report and the Appraisal Report of the Economic and Finance Committee on the draft Resolution.
Mr. Ha said that in the context of extremely complicated and unpredictable world gasoline and aviation fuel prices due to the impact of geopolitical conflicts, the promulgation of a decree on taxes and gasoline is very timely, to stabilize the macroeconomy and ensure major balances of the economy.
The contents of the Resolution need to be considered and decided promptly, and need to be issued immediately to take effect soon, meeting practical requirements and expectations of the people and the business community.
Contributing opinions to complete the National Assembly's Resolution Project, delegate Le Hong Ha made 3 proposals.
First, regarding the authority to issue policies, Mr. Ha agreed that the issuance of a Resolution to adjust some tax regulations is under the authority of the National Assembly. However, it is necessary to design a mechanism of authorization and reasonable decentralization for the Government in organizing implementation, in order to ensure proactiveness, timeliness, and efficiency in situations that occur.
Secondly, regarding the scope of policy adjustment, Mr. Ha said that in order for policies to be effective in substance, it is necessary to place them in the overall synchronous solutions, including fake management, transparency of factors constituting the base price, ensuring gasoline and oil supply and market stability.
At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen inspection and supervision, promptly detect and strictly handle acts of speculation, hoarding goods, and policy profiteering, thereby ensuring that policies go into practice in accordance with the objectives and targets.
Third, regarding the time limit for applying policies and the authority to adjust the effectiveness, Mr. Ha agreed with the proposal to stipulate the application time from April 16, 2026 to the end of June 30, 2026, agreeing with the plan to assign the competent Government to proactively adjust the effective time of the Resolution within a certain limit, based on closely following the actual situation and being responsible for reporting to the National Assembly.
However, he suggested that it is necessary to consider supplementing regulations on conditions, scope and time limits allowed to be extended, in order to ensure strictness, transparency and proper authority.
In necessary cases, a mechanism can be studied to allow the Government to proactively adjust some tax rates within the framework of the Resolution and report to the National Assembly at the nearest session, ensuring both flexibility in management and maintaining the decisive role of the National Assembly" - Mr. Ha analyzed.
People are interested in a specific question: Can you buy cheap gasoline?
Agreeing with this view, National Assembly delegate Huynh Quyet Thang (Hanoi Delegation) also highly agreed with the necessity of issuing a tax adjustment resolution.
According to the Government's report, with the environmental protection tax, value-added tax, special consumption tax and the expected application time as proposed (applied from April 16, 2026 to the end of June 30, 2026), it is expected to reduce the State budget revenue by an average of about 7,300 billion VND per month.
Delegate Huynh Quyet Thang cited the above figures and said: "The thing voters are concerned about is not this revenue reduction but the specific question of whether people can buy cheap gasoline, whether businesses can really reduce costs or not?". From there, he proposed that there should be a requirement to control prices transparently, put accountability first, which is a mandatory condition for policies to be meaningful.
Believing that reducing budget revenue in the short term may support businesses and promote growth but cannot be exchanged for reducing national financial security in the short and medium term, he proposed clarifying plans to compensate for revenue sources, proactively implementing budget management scenarios, ensuring fiscality and the sustainability of the economy.
If everything goes smoothly, then after June 30th, there must be policies to withdraw from tax policy, that is, tax policies must return to the old state, then what policies? In particular, it is necessary to ensure timely reporting and explanation to the National Assembly" - Mr. Thang expressed his opinion.
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