CIRCULAR

PRESCRIBING THE REGIME OF COLLECTION, REMITTANCE AND MANAGEMENT OF USE OF NUMERAL CODE AND BAR CODE-GRANTING CHARGE

Pursuant to the National Assembly Standing Committee’s Charge and Fee Ordinance No.38/2001/PL-UBTVQH of August 28, 2001 and the Government’s Decree No. 57/2002/ND-CP of June 3, 2002 detailing the implementation of the Charge and Fee Ordinance;
Pursuant to the Prime Minister’s Decision No.45/2002/QD-TTg of March 27, 2002 stipulating the contents of and agencies performing the State management over numeral codes and bar codes;
After getting opinions of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance hereby prescribes the regime of collection, remittance and management of use of numeral code and bar code-granting charge, as follows:

I. CHARGE PAYERS AND LEVELS

1. Vietnamese and foreign enterprises and organizations, when being granted by the agencies in charge of State management over numeral codes and bar codes or their authorized agencies the licenses to use numeral codes and bar codes, provided with use instructions and use maintenance of numeral codes and bar codes, shall have to pay the numeral code and bar code-granting charge according to the provisions of this Circular.

2. The numeral code and bar code-granting charge levels are specified as follows:

- Charge for numeral code and bar code granting and use instructions: VND 1,000,000/granting (VND one million/granting).

- Charge for numeral code and bar code use maintenance: VND 500,000/year (VND five hundred thousand/year).

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1. Numeral code and bar code-granting charge constitutes a State budget revenue.

2. The agencies performing the State management over numeral codes and bar codes or agencies authorized to collect the numeral code and bar code-granting charge (hereinafter referred collectively to as the charge-collecting agencies) shall have to:

a/ Organize the collection and remittance of the numeral code and bar code-granting charge strictly according to the provisions of this Circular. Notify (or publicly post up) the numeral code and bar code-granting charge levels at their headquarters. When collecting the charge, they shall have to supply charge collection receipts to charge payers (receipts issued by the Finance Ministry).

b/ Open accounting books to monitor the collected, remitted and used charge amounts in strict compliance with the current accounting and statistic legislation.

c/ Register, declare and remit the numeral code and bar code-granting charge under the guidance of tax offices of localities where they are headquartered.

d/ Effect the liquidation and settlement of charge collection receipts and settlement of collected and remitted charge amounts with their direct managing tax offices according to the regime of management of receipts and seals prescribed by the Finance Ministry.

3. The collected numeral code and bar code-granting charge amounts shall be managed and used as follows:

a/ The charge-collecting agencies shall be entitled to retain 90% (ninety per cent) of the total actually collected charge amount before remitting them into the State budget.

b/ They shall then remit into the State budget the remainder of 10% (ten per cent) of the total actually collected charge amount.

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a/ Payment of salaries, remunerations, allowances, salary- or remuneration-based contributions according to the current regime for employees personally engaged in the charge collection. In cases where the units have already been allocated by the State budget funding for payment of wages to their officials and employees on the payrolls, they shall only be entitled to pay remunerations to laborers hired from outside to conduct the charge collection according to the regime.

b/ Expenses in direct service of charge collection, such as those for stationery, office supplies, telephone, power and water charges, working trip allowance, public mission allowance, communications and information, printing (purchase) of documents, printing (purchase) of declaration forms, licenses and other kinds of prints according to the current spending norms and limits.

c/ Expenses for conferences, workshops, professional training courses at home and abroad; expenses for propagation and advertisement in direct service of charge collection.

d/ Expenses for regular repairs or overhauls of assets, machinery and equipment in direct service of charge and fee collection.

e/ Expenses for the procurement of supplies, raw materials, equipment and working tools as well as other expenses in direct service of charge collection according to estimates approved by the competent authorities.

f/ Expenses for the payment of charges to the International Numeral Code and Bar Code Organizations as prescribed.

g/ Expenses being deductions for setting up reward fund and welfare fund for officials and employees personally engaged in charge collection. The annual average per-head deduction level for setting up these two funds shall not exceed 3 (three) months’ actually paid salaries, if the collected amount in the year is larger than that in the preceding year, or 2 (two) months’ actually paid salaries, if the collected amount in the year is smaller than or equal to that in the preceding year.

In cases where an agency performing the State management over numeral codes and bar codes authorizes units in its network to partly perform the work of managing numeral codes and bar codes, the Ministry of Science and Technology shall guide the levels of distribution and use of retained charge amount (90% of the above-said collected charge amount) for the units in the network to cover expenses related to their authorized work.

The charge-collecting agencies shall have to manage and use the retained charge amounts for the above-mentioned purposes with lawful vouchers and make annual revenue-expenditure settlements according to actual amounts. After making settlements strictly according to the regime, the retained charge amount not used up in the year shall be carried forward to the following year for further spending according to the prescribed regime.

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- Within 10 days before starting the charge collection, the charge-collecting agencies shall have to register with the local tax departments types of charge to be collected, places of collection, collection vouchers and organization of charge collection.

- The charge-collecting agencies shall have to open "collected charge custody accounts" at the State Treasury’s branches in localities where charge is collected for monitoring and managing the collected charge amounts. Weekly, they shall have to remit the collected charge amounts into such custody accounts and separately account such revenue amounts according to the current accounting regime applicable to administrative and non-business units.

- Once every month before the 5th day of the following month, the charge-collecting agencies shall make and submit declarations to the direct managing tax offices on the collected numeral code and bar code-granting charge amounts, retained amounts and amounts to be remitted into the State budget of the current month.

- Basing themselves on the declarations, the charge-collecting agencies shall remit the remittable charge amounts into the State budget. The time limit for remitting a month�s charge amount into the State budget shall be the 15th day of the following month (according to the corresponding chapter, type, clause, class and item of the current State budget index), at the State Treasury’s branches in localities where such charge-collecting agencies are headquartered. The numeral code and bar code-granting charge amounts remitted into the State budget shall be wholly distributed to the central budget.

- Upon receiving charge declarations from the charge-collecting agencies, the tax offices shall examine such declarations, compare them with the already issued collection vouchers and already used vouchers for the purpose of determining the collected charge amounts, retained amounts and amounts remittable into the State budget in the period, and notify the charge-collecting agencies of amounts to be remitted into the State budget.

- The charge-collecting agencies shall compare charge amounts to be remitted according to tax offices’ notices with the amounts actually remitted into the State budget in the period. In case of under-remittance, the deficit shall be fully remitted into the State budget; in case of over-remittance, the over-remitted amount shall be cleared against the remittable amount of the following period.

6. Drafting and complying with charge revenue-expenditure estimates:

a/ Annually, basing themselves on the numeral code and bar code-granting charge levels, spending contents guided in this Circular and the current financial spending regime, the numeral code and bar code-granting charge-collecting agencies shall draft detailed charge revenue-expenditure estimates according to the current State budget index and send them to their superior agencies for approval and summing up before submission thereof to the competent finance agencies of the same level for approval.

b/ Basing themselves on annual revenue-expenditure estimates already approved by the competent authorities, the numeral code and bar code-granting charge-collecting agencies shall draft quarterly revenue-expenditure estimates, detailed according to the current State budget index, then send them to the managing agencies, the State treasury’s branches where transactions are conducted, the finance and tax offices of the same level to serve as basis for controlling revenues and expenditures.

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a/ The numeral code and bar code-granting charge-collecting agencies shall have to open accounting books for recording, accounting and settling charge revenues and expenditures according to the Finance Minister’s Decision No.999/TC/QD/CDKT of November 2, 1996 promulgating the system of administrative and non-business accounting regimes; conduct the settlement of collection vouchers, charge amounts already collected and remitted into the State budget, and submit annual settlement reports on collected and remitted numeral code and bar code-granting charge amounts to the tax offices before the end of February of the year following the reporting year, and fully remit the deficit charge amount into the State budget within 10 days after submitting such reports.

b/ Tax offices shall conduct the settlement of collected amounts according to receipts, total collected amount and retained amount as well as amount to be remitted into the State budget. The finance offices and tax offices shall settle expenditure amounts from the numeral code and bar code charge revenue source left at the collecting units according to the provisions at Point 4, Section II of this Circular.

c/ The superior managing agencies shall have to inspect and certify the settlements of numeral code and bar code-granting charge revenue-expenditure of their attached charge-collecting agencies and incorporate them into annual settlement reports for submission to the finance offices for appraisal, notification of settlement approval together with annual settlements of managing agencies according to the provisions of the current State Budget Law.

III. ORGANIZATION OF IMPLEMENTATION

1. This Circular takes effect 15 days after its signing. The documents prescribing the collection of numeral code and bar code-granting charge, which are contrary to this Circular, are hereby annulled.

2. The State management agencies assigned the tasks of granting, maintaining and instructing the use of numeral codes and bar codes and the authorized agencies shall effect the collection, remittance and use of the numeral code and bar code-granting charge according to the provisions of this Circular.

3. Any problems arising in the course of implementation should be promptly reported by the concerned agencies, organizations and individuals to the Finance Ministry for study and additional guidance.

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