Circular No. 159-TC-NN stipulates certain specific points regarding agricultural tax policies for people going to clear land.

 CIRCULAR

Regulations on certain specific points regarding agricultural tax policy for people going to open up new land

THE MINISTER OF FINANCE

Respectfully submitted to: Administrative Committees of regions, provinces, and cities.

In recent years, responding to the movement encouraging people from the lowlands to go up to build the economy in the mountains, tens of thousands of families have moved to the midland and mountainous provinces to establish new homes. The main source of livelihood for these people is agricultural production, primarily opening up new land for cultivation. The Government has issued regulations on policies for people opening up new land to help solve some difficulties in production and living conditions (Circular No. 31-TTg dated April 24, 1963).

With the approval of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Finance hereby stipulates certain specific points regarding the agricultural tax policy for fields opened up by cooperatives or individual households from the lowlands moving to the mountains:

1. For newly opened or restored fields:

Cooperatives that centrally open up new land, as well as individual households from the lowlands moving to join mountain cooperatives for joint production (interwoven land opening) or independent production, should be exempted from taxes for a certain period according to Article 1 of Decree No. 410-TTg dated September 6, 1957, issued by the Prime Minister on ten policies to encourage production in the mountains:

- "Those who open up new land, turning wasteland, valleys, hill slopes, and pepper fields into rice fields will be exempted from agricultural tax for seven years."

- "Those who wish to cultivate abandoned fields must report to the Administrative Committee and Agricultural Association of the commune. The Committee and the Association have the responsibility to negotiate with the field owners to ensure ethnic unity. The cultivator will retain all profits and be exempted from agricultural tax for three to five years..."

2. For cooperatives and individual households from the lowlands moving to open up land in the mountains if they produce on fields "belonging" to others and already subject to agricultural tax, they must continue to pay agricultural tax according to the following specific rates:

- For centrally organized cooperatives opening up new land, they must pay tax at a uniform rate of 10% on the annual yield of the fields "belonging" transferred by local residents.

- For individual households from the lowlands moving to the mountains for independent production, if they cultivate fields "belonging" to others, they must pay tax according to Point c, Section 2, Part II of Circular No. 03-TC-NN dated January 23, 1964, issued by the Ministry of Finance to guide the implementation of Circular No. 120-TTg dated December 30, 1963, issued by the Prime Minister, which means"based on the ratio of the tax recorded to the total annual yield (excluding exemptions)" of the nearest cooperative, to calculate the tax on the annual yield of the fields "belonging" that are cultivated, rather than calculating the tax rate according to a progressive tax schedule.

- For members opening up new land who request fields "belonging" to produce independently, no additional tax will be levied but the tax will be divided between the recipient and the owner based on the proportion of the annual yield of the member opening up new land. For example, if the annual yield of the area requested by Mr. A, a member opening up new land, from Mr. B is 10% of the total annual yield of all fields subject to tax of Mr. B before granting part to Mr. A, then Mr. A must pay 10% of the tax to the State and Mr. B must pay 90%.

3. For mountain cooperatives that accept people from the lowlands to join in production (interwoven land opening), if during the initial period due to underdeveloped production causes the average income of local members to decrease, affecting their living standards, the State will consider reducing the agricultural tax for the cooperative for the first year by fully exempting the tax of new members from the lowlands joining the cooperative. If after the first year, due to objective conditions, the income of the cooperative remains lower, the Provincial Administrative Committee may consider and decide to extend the tax reduction period for another year. The method of calculating the reduced tax is: Divide the total tax recorded for the cooperative by the total number of people in the cooperative (including both old and new members' households) to find the average tax per person. Multiply the number of people in the households of new members from the lowlands joining the cooperative by the average tax per person to find the tax that new members must bear, which is the amount of tax that the cooperative receives a reduction in for the first year.

If there are mountain cooperatives that, although accepting additional people from the lowlands to join in production, due to relatively favorable production conditions and the addition of new labor force, the income of the cooperative as a whole and per capita remains at normal levels or even higher than before, then there is no question of reducing taxes as mentioned above.

If cooperatives opening up new land or individual households opening up new land develop slash-and-burn fields, they must pay slash-and-burn field tax according to the current slash-and-burn field system in the mountains (Decree No. 1119-TTg dated November 6, 1956, issued by the Prime Minister), which means:

4. - The tax rate is 80%. - In the first year, tax is levied on the entire harvest of the slash-and-burn field.

- In the second year, ten parts of the harvest are taxed on eight parts, with two parts exempted.

- From the third year onwards, all are exempted.

During the implementation process, if there are specific cases different from those mentioned above, please report to the Ministry of Finance for guidance on solutions from the Prime Minister.

- From the third year onwards, all taxes shall be exempted.

In the course of implementation, if there are specific cases different from those mentioned above, it is requested that the Committee report to the Ministry of Finance for guidance on resolution from the Prime Minister.