An individual was fined and had to pay 4.1 billion VND in arrears due to income from Facebook and Google.

Mr. Nguyen Nam Binh - Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department said that this agency has just issued a decision to collect and fine 4.1 billion VND from an individual who had an income of 41 billion VND online in 2016 and 2017 but did not declare and pay taxes.

Accordingly, this individual is the writer of a game show that is widely downloaded on Facebook, Google, YouTube... and has run advertisements on these programs, being paid more than 41 billion VND in 2016 - 2017 but did not declare or pay taxes.

After online sales, money earned from foreign advertising services will be subject to tax.

The Tax Department invited this individual to work, and he admitted that he had not fulfilled his tax obligations, and pledged to voluntarily remedy the consequences. "However, because this failure to declare taxes occurred over a long period of time, the tax authority had to collect, fine, and calculate late payment fees. The total amount was 4.1 billion VND, of which nearly 3 billion was collected, the rest was fines and late payment fees," said Mr. Binh.

According to Mr. Binh, this is the first time an individual receiving income from abroad has been charged such a large amount of tax. The case was discovered when the tax authority asked banks to review income transferred to Google, Facebook, YouTube... but without tax deduction.

Mr. Binh said that through investigation, the tax authority discovered that not only individuals and domestic enterprises paid for advertising to Facebook, Google, YouTube... but on the contrary, these organizations also paid huge amounts of money to individuals and domestic enterprises. And most of these incomes were not declared, taxed, or taxed incompletely.

Thanks to that, in addition to discovering this case, the tax authority has begun to discover many other cases of receiving income from Facebook, Google... but not declaring taxes.

Specifically, another individual with a registered residence in Quang Nam province, temporarily residing in Ho Chi Minh City, was also paid an estimated amount of 20-30 billion VND by Facebook, Google, YouTube... and has not yet declared or paid taxes. However, when the tax authority invited him to work, this individual was no longer at the above temporary residence address. The Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department has sent information to the Quang Nam Tax Department to continue handling this case.

Facebook, Google, Youtube and even Amazon are also places that help users earn huge income from advertising activities.

The leader of the Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department added that, through investigation, there were not only 1-2 individuals receiving tens of billions of VND from Facebook, Google, YouTube... as above, but the number was much larger. Through investigation at only 4 banks, there were more than 500 billion VND transferred by the above organizations to thousands of individuals in Vietnam (some received tens of millions, but some also received billions of VND).

In cases where the Tax Department has obtained information through this investigation, it will be transferred to the Tax Departments in Ho Chi Minh City or other Tax Departments across the country for further processing.

From the collection and fine of 4.1 billion VND from an individual, Mr. Binh said that the tax authority also wants to raise public awareness so that other individuals and businesses, if they receive income from foreign organizations but have not declared and paid taxes, will proactively contact the tax authority to fulfill their obligations.