Hồ Chí Minh City’s Quadrillion-Đồng Revenue Ambition: Will Residents Pay the Price?

State media outlets recently celebrated the announcement by the tax authority of Hồ Chí Minh City regarding an 800 trillion đồng (approximately $30.4 billion USD) domestic revenue target for 2026, hailing it as a “record,” “unprecedented,” and a “historic turning point.” 

Achieving this goal would secure the highest budget revenue ever collected by a local government in Việt Nam. However, the enthusiasm surrounding this record-breaking figure obscures several critical policy questions. 

Scrutiny is required to determine the assumptions underpinning this target, who will bear the burden of the increased revenue pressure, and what methods will be utilized to force this figure into reality. 

Perhaps most importantly, one must ask how much of the collected money the city will actually be permitted to keep.

A Gap of More Than 200 Trillion Đồng

In early 2026, the central government assigned the Hồ Chí Minh City Tax Department a meticulously calculated revenue target of 627 trillion đồng, based on the city’s actual economic capacity as determined by the Ministry of Finance. This included 587.5 trillion đồng in domestic revenue, excluding crude oil.

Yet, following the issuance of Directive No. 45/CT-UBND by the city’s People’s Committee—aimed at driving double-digit economic growth—the total budget collection requirement was pushed to a staggering one quadrillion đồng. As a result, the domestic revenue target spiked to 800 trillion đồng. This new figure is 27.6% higher than the central government’s initial estimate and a 29% increase from 2025 collections. [1]

No official documentation justifies how a local government can unilaterally inflate a central authority’s calculation by nearly 213 trillion đồng. This surplus alone matches the combined annual budgets of multiple provinces. With no independent impact assessment and zero public debate, this mandate was simply handed down for the lower bureaucracy to execute.

One must ask if this surge stems from genuine economic projections and new revenue streams, or if it is fundamentally a politically driven goal. This extends beyond mere budget methodology; in public administration, inflating revenue targets inevitably breeds severe implementation pressures.

Land as the Primary Source of Revenue?

Tax officials project that revenue from land-use fees and rents must reach roughly 189 trillion đồng to fill the 213 trillion đồng gap between the central government’s estimate and the city’s aggressive new ambition. However, actual collections during the first five months of 2026 amounted to only 22.443 trillion đồng—a mere 12% of the annual target. [2]

This shortfall raises a practical question with immediate real-world consequences: How will the city extract an additional 167 trillion đồng from land-related sources in less than seven months?

A noteworthy factor is Hồ Chí Minh City’s new land price schedule, implemented at the beginning of 2026. [3] Public reports indicate that land values in many areas have surged substantially under this new framework, with some locations seeing multiple-fold increases compared to the previous schedule. [4] 

Legally, this schedule dictates the calculation of land-use fees for first-time certificate issuance, land-use changes, and general land-related taxes.

Consequently, any resident legalizing a property or business securing a long-term lease will now face significantly higher costs. These inflated payments are poised to heavily subsidize the city’s 189 trillion đồng land-revenue goal.

While authorities may defend the adjustments as a necessary measure to reflect true market values and curb revenue leakage, the timing is impossible to ignore. 

Amidst the city’s pursuit of a record-breaking budget target, the financial strain on the public is paramount. Anyone navigating land-related procedures in 2026 is virtually guaranteed to encounter drastically higher financial obligations than in previous years.

Enforcement Pressure at the Grassroots Level

Within the tax system of Việt Nam, revenue mandates do not stop at the municipal level; they are systematically distributed downward to district offices and ultimately to local tax teams at the ward and commune levels. Hence, an overall target increase of 27.6% guarantees that comparable, if not greater, pressure will cascade directly onto frontline tax officials.

To meet this ambitious goal, authorities will likely rely on familiar tactics. This includes an increase in business tax inspections and audits, the aggressive pursuit of outstanding debts, strict monitoring of electronic invoices for household businesses, and the enforcement of administrative penalties for minor violations that might have been ignored in the past.

Giang Văn Hiển, deputy director of the Hồ Chí Minh City Tax Department, confirmed this. He stated that the tax authority would “accelerate digital transformation and the application of big data to tightly control electronic invoices, completely prevent fraud and transfer pricing,” alongside “strictly managing tax arrears to ensure correct, sufficient, and timely collection.” [5]

While these are theoretically legitimate measures to combat revenue loss, the reality of public administration dictates that immense pressure to meet targets often incentivizes overreach. Officials may feel compelled to expand audits and intensify collection efforts far beyond standard practices. 

The danger, therefore, lies not in the measures themselves, but in their execution under the crushing weight of an 800 trillion đồng goal. When the priority becomes hitting a target at all costs, the distinction between lawful collection and systematic overcollection becomes dangerously blurred.

How Much Does the City Keep?

Another paradox exists within the fiscal sharing mechanism between local authorities and the central government—an issue that state media consistently overlooks.

Between 2022 and 2025, Hồ Chí Minh City was permitted to retain a mere 21% of its collected revenue, marking the lowest retention rate among the 18 localities contributing back to the national budget. [6] 

Over the years, city officials have repeatedly petitioned to raise this rate to 23–25% or to retain a portion of surplus revenue for essential public services and infrastructure. [7] However, these proposals largely remain unapproved, ensuring that the bulk of any extra revenue continues to flow directly to the central government.

This creates a frustrating dynamic. The more the city collects—such as in 2025, when total revenue soared to 785 trillion đồng, far exceeding projections—the larger the absolute transfer to the central budget becomes. As a result, funds kept for reinvestment in local education, healthcare, and infrastructure grow at a drastically slower pace. [8]

This provokes an important question: if Hồ Chí Minh City actually meets or surpasses its 2026 revenue target, what direct benefits will the residents see?

The answer is grimly straightforward. The existing formula dictates that most of the new revenue will be absorbed by the central government, leaving city residents to navigate the exact same chronic traffic congestion, severe flooding, and overcrowded schools and hospitals.

This is not an attack on fiscal redistribution; a unified nation clearly requires resource allocation across regions. However, when a locality is judged almost entirely on its revenue generation while being allowed to keep only a fraction of it, the fundamental effectiveness of this incentive structure must be questioned.

Performance Metrics and Long-term Consequences

The one-quadrillion-đồng revenue target exposes a distorted policy incentive system. In this framework, development success is evaluated based on the sheer volume of collected revenue rather than the quality of public spending or actual improvements in the living standards of residents. Extracting more taxes equates to a greater perceived achievement.

However, envisioning a genuine economic growth scenario capable of generating a 27–29% increase in budget revenue within a single year is highly improbable. Bridging this gap relies on three likely methods: intensifying the tax burden on businesses and household enterprises, expanding land-related collections to shift costs onto citizens legalizing property, or prematurely recognizing revenues designated for future years.While these approaches carry significant costs, such detriments rarely appear in official achievement reports. 

Policymakers must confront a critical question: if relentless tax collection forces businesses to downsize, drives household enterprises out of the market, and overheats the real estate sector through inflated land costs, what will fund the revenue for 2027? Furthermore, will the target simply be raised once again when that time arrives?

Falling into a cycle of meeting current targets at the expense of future stability is not unprecedented for a local government. What differentiates the current situation is the scale of the target. This figure is large enough to be a national record, rendering the demand for serious, transparent answers to these pressing questions absolutely urgent.

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Thiên Di wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on June 9, 2026. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.