The Tax Policy Department and the General Department of Taxation has been assigned to prepare, research, and develop a plan to adjust tax policies for environmental protection for petroleum products and promptly report to the Prime Minister before February 28.

It was essential to carefully consider and evaluate the impact of this policy because in the VND350 trillion support package for the socio-economic recovery and development programme, there was a tax reduction policy of up to VND64 trillion, Minister of Finance Ho Duc Phoc told Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.

Ngo Tri Long, former deputy director of the Ministry of Finance's Price and Market Research Institute, said that currently, the taxes applied to petroleum products include import, value-added, excise, and environmental protection. Of which, imported gasoline is subject to 10 per cent import tax, a special consumption tax on gasoline at 10 per cent, an environmental protection tax for 1 litre of gas at about VND4,000, and VND2,000 for 1 litre of oil.

The domestic petrol price depends entirely on the world petrol price. When the world gasoline price increases, domestic prices will also increase. The petrol price of a country depended on each country's world price and tax policy, he noted.

In the Government's socio-economic recovery and development programme, the National Assembly has recently calculated a tax reduction package.

The Ministry of Finance said that the State budget was facing difficulties, so if it continued to reduce taxes, it would burden the budget.

In the programme, the National Assembly has closed the reduction of value-added tax of 2 per cent on some items, except for items subject to special consumption tax, including gasoline, because this item is not encouraged to be consumed as it affects the environment.

"Then only the environmental protection tax remains. Personally, I think the environmental protection tax is currently high. A litre of gasoline carries VND4,000. Should this tax rate be reconsidered,?" Long said. — VNS