Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, Phan Van Mai, affirmed on the sidelines of the 20th conference of the 10th Ho Chi Minh City People's Council on December 11.
The city’s chairman said that the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has assigned the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to review the land allocation and lease decisions for the Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens.
Accordingly, the People's Committee of the city will lease the land used by the zoo for business purposes. For areas serving public purposes, the municipal People's Committee will reassess and may allocate the land without charging land use fees. After adjusting the land lease decision, the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department will have a base to recalculate taxes on land leases.
In 2014, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee signed a decision to lease 158,117 square meters of land to the Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens for public purposes, with an annual payment scheme and a 50-year long-term lease. The District 1 Tax Department issued a land rent payment notice for the entire area, with a total payment of VND163.3 billion (US$6.4 million) to be paid each year.
District 1’s Tax Department recently announced that as of October 31, the Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens' tax debt was more than VND846 billion (US$33.3 million). Of this amount, an overdue tax debt of over VND787 billion (US$31 million) requires enforcement action.
According to the representative of the Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens, the zoo currently uses only 5,590 square meters out of 158,117 square meters of land leased from the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee for business purposes. The remaining land is used for not-for-profit facilities, such as animal enclosures, parks, and public services. The Saigon Zoo has proposed a payment for the land used for business activities.
