Social media giants pay $109 million in February taxes

Social media giants pay $109 million in February taxes

According to the Department of Taxation under the Ministry of Finance, foreign service providers including Google, Meta, and TikTok paid taxes worth VND2.79 trillion ($109.3 million) in February.

The sums collected from such providers in February are equal to one-third of the total sum of all of 2024, which came to $339.6 million.

E-commerce and digital platforms with payment functions are asked to declare and pay taxes on behalf of sellers for each transaction from April 1, 2025. The regulation will ease administrative procedures for sellers while strengthening tax management work for online business activities.

Currently, Vietnam is home to nearly 725,000 organisations and individuals conducting business on e-commerce platforms, with a total transaction value exceeding $2.94 billion. Tax revenue from e-commerce activities climbed from $3.2 billion in 2022 to $3.8 billion in 2023, before reaching $4.54 billion last year.

However, tax revenue from households and business individuals remains limited, with an estimated sum of $97.9 million last year. The taxes are collected from over 300,000 individuals doing business on over 400 e-commerce trading floors.

Total tax revenue from both local firms and business households, as well as foreign service providers without a permanent establishment in Vietnam, remains relatively low, accounting for less than one-fifth of the total revenue generated in Vietnam's e-commerce market. This proportion has declined from 20.1 per cent in 2022 to 17.4 per cent in 2024.

More than 300,000 stores have unidentified sellers on the five major e-commerce platforms (Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, Sendo, and Grab), with estimated revenues exceeding $2.74 billion.

VIR