HCMC taxman resolved to tax online vendors
HCMC taxman resolved to tax online vendors
The HCMC Tax Department will continue to look for new ways to collect taxes from individuals and organizations selling goods and services on social networks, said Nguyen Nam Binh, the deputy head of the department.
Binh told Lao Dong newspaper that despite the department’s strong efforts towards collecting taxes from online vendors, previous solutions have proved ineffective. Therefore, the department is working out more efficient solutions to force online traders to make tax declarations and payments.
In addition, the Law on Tax Management, which has been approved by the National Assembly, includes provisions on the liability of commercial banks, the information and communications sector, and enterprises to cooperate with tax agencies to tax online stores.
Therefore, the HCMC Tax Department will work closely with banks to check revenues of online vendors, even the small ones.
Tax agencies in districts in the city will team up with the relevant agencies to determine the addresses of online vendors and inform them of their obligation to file and pay taxes. Further, tax agencies will boost the use of e-invoices to improve the management of online stores and prevent them from using cash to evade taxes.
In the middle of last year, the HCMC Tax Department had written to 14,000 providers of goods and services on Google, Facebook and YouTube, with annual revenues of VND100 million each, asking them to pay taxes. However, most of them did not comply.
Nguyen Thanh Tung, the head of the tax office in HCMC’s Tan Phu District, said that the office has collected only VND2 billion in tax arrears from one online vendor since then.
The number of online vendors visiting the tax office of Phu Nhuan District to make tax declarations and payments has also been modest, and the office has suspended collection of taxes from online vendors.
Binh from the HCMC Tax Department admitted that the tax collection was not as efficient as expected.
The department has collected billions of Vietnamese dong from several online stores with high revenues. But, the majority of online vendors have yet to fulfill their tax obligations.
None of the owners of online stores with revenues of millions or billions of Vietnamese dong have made tax declarations and payments as required by law.
According to Binh, it is hard to get information on online vendors. In addition, the most popular method of payment is cash on delivery, which makes it hard for the taxman to track transactions.
