TAX SECTOR TO TIGHTEN MANAGEMENT FOR E-COMMERCE ACTIVITIES

The rapid development of e-commerce in recent times has posed significant challenges to the tax management in Việt Nam. The tax sector is coordinating with relevant ministries and branches to seek suitable solutions to development requirements and practices serving tax management and preventing tax loss.

At a recent meeting on implementation plans and proposals for specific solutions to prevent tax loss for e-commerce activities, Director General of the General Department of Taxation (GDT) Mai Xuân Thành said that the booming development along with many new forms of e-commerce in recent years has posed new challenges for tax management authorities. That is the ability to fully manage revenue sources, determine taxpayers and tax bases, clearly classify types of income as a basis for taxation, and control business transactions to manage tax collection subjects and cash flow control.

Thành said that the Ministry of Finance has approved a tax management project for e-commerce activities in Việt Nam in an effort to strengthen the management of e-commerce activities and business activities on digital platforms. Accordingly, the GDT has developed, proposed and implemented tax management solutions in the short and long term to improve the efficiency of tax management for e-commerce activities.

“Besides the results achieved, Thành said, tax management of e-commerce business activities is still limited. The requirement is for tax authorities to review the actual tax management in localities to come up with solutions to manage tax collection with e-commerce more strongly in the coming time.”

Also at this meeting, GDT Deputy Director Mai Sơn said that to effectively collect taxes on e-commerce, specialised units need to focus on unifying the identification of subjects participating in e-commerce business, thereby proposing specific solutions for each target group.

According to Sơn, regarding tax management methods of collecting information through entities related to e-commerce business activities, such as owners of e-commerce trading floors, foreign suppliers with no business establishments in Việt Nam, shipping units and payment intermediaries, need special research to have implementation solutions consistent with the practical movements of e-commerce development in the coming time.

To prevent tax loss from e-commerce activities, Thành requested a comprehensive report on tax management for e-commerce, including evaluating results, reviewing remaining problems and specifically recommending management solutions for each target group to prevent loss of e-commerce tax revenue.

The tax sector will continue to promote communication and guidance for people to declare and pay taxes with income received from e-commerce business activities combined with publicising the list of taxpayers with tax debt on mass media. At the same time, tax authorities will also research and apply measures to enforce tax debt, including banning exit from the country for taxpayers who have not fulfilled their tax obligations.

74 foreign suppliers paid more than VNĐ8,000 billion in taxes

After a year of operating, the E-commerce Information Portal has recorded 357 e-commerce trading floors providing information, of which many have a large market share, such as Shopee, Lazada, Sendo, Voso and Tiki, according to the General Department of Taxation.

To date, 74 foreign suppliers have registered, declared and paid taxes through the electronic portal for foreign suppliers. The total tax paid by foreign suppliers is nearly VNĐ8.1 trillion, of which VNĐ6.9 trillion was declared and paid directly through the electronic information portal and VNĐ1.2 trillion was deducted and paid on behalf of Vietnamese parties.

Source: VNS