Difficult to tax goods over one million VND sold online

If tax is imposed on goods over one million VND, sellers will have many ways to "avoid" it, but experts will worry that the management cost will be greater than the revenue.

Faced with the proposal to collect proportional tax from sellers of goods worth over one million VND, many online business individuals expressed skepticism about its feasibility.

Mr. Truong Manh Duong (owner of an online technology shop on Facebook) said that most shop owners can get around the law by not listing the selling price of their goods. "Instead, sellers and buyers inbox each other about prices, which will be difficult for the management agency to implement."

Ms. Thu An - a person who specializes in selling branded shoes online said that she was invited to work with the Ho Chi Minh City tax department and has also completed some tax declaration procedures. However, she said that with the above proposal, she will have to figure out ways to "avoid taxes" in many ways such as reducing the price of the product or reducing sales of goods by cash transactions, transferring money to relatives, etc.

An e-commerce expert recommends that tax authorities should consider carefully before calculating the tax. "The e-commerce sector needs to be accurately calculated in terms of scale to determine whether it has developed large enough to be taxed," he said. Assuming that it is time to collect taxes, the next story, according to this expert, is feasibility. "One of the big goals is to collect in the sense that the operating costs of collecting taxes must be significantly smaller than the amount collected," he said.

Difficult to collect sales tax on facebook.

Regarding this issue, at the National Assembly's question-and-answer session on November 17, Minister of Information and Communications - Truong Minh Tuan said that Google has a policy of sharing advertising money with people posting on Youtube, some people consider this "easy work, but with income".

"The revenue from advertising through these networks is huge, more than 100 million USD a year, but we don't pay any tax," he said.

The Ministry of Information and Communications is asking domestic content producers to seriously consider putting exclusive products on cross-border platforms, as this would inadvertently help global social networks take away development opportunities for Vietnamese network operators.

Along with that, state management agencies also coordinate to control cross-border trading and advertising on platforms; control business and tax payment with Facebook and Google.

The Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department also acknowledged that the current tax collection policy mechanism for these activities is not complete, so the main form of tax collection is still self-declaration, self-calculation and self-payment by organizations and individuals, causing inequality in tax policy. Normally, in countries around the world, all transactions are conducted through bank accounts, so income control and taxation are easier. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, this rate is not high because cash transactions are still quite common.

Regarding the possibility of tax authorities collecting from businesses on Facebook, the leader of the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department acknowledged that the goal of this program is to implement the principle of fairness, meaning that if you do business, you must fulfill your tax obligations, and how much you collect will depend on the actual business situation.

According to many experts, collecting taxes from sellers on Facebook will not be simple. Each organization and individual can currently own many different accounts on social networks for business. Buying and selling is mainly done in cash, so it is difficult to monitor. Not to mention distinguishing what purpose stores use Facebook for, for consulting, marketing or selling products and services. In addition, some people do business on Facebook as a seasonal job or to earn extra income, so how should taxes be managed?

"In reality, many people only use Facebook for advertising, seeing it as a new form of sales. They still have warehouses and business locations outside and are already subject to tax declaration with the budget," said a representative of the General Department of Taxation.

In addition, Ms. Ta Thi Phuong Lan - Deputy Director of the Personal Income Tax Management Department (General Department of Taxation) also affirmed that the tax industry has no intention of collecting taxes from all those operating in the field of e-commerce. "This is just a draft Law released by the Ministry of Finance for comments, but I affirm that the tax authority does not raise the issue of collecting taxes from students. Not all people doing business on Facebook are subject to paying taxes according to these proposals," Ms. Lan said.

This person also said that after the Tax Department of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi informed some individuals to help them understand their tax obligations, thousands of business individuals responded.

According to VNE