​Finance Ministry: Leading in Tax Collection through E-commerce Portal

​Finance Ministry: Leading in Tax Collection through E-commerce Portal 16/01/2023 03:56:00 313

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The Ministry of Finance (General Department of Taxation) has recently deployed a group of solutions to strengthen tax management on e-commerce, from propaganda activities supporting taxpayers to improving information technology infrastructure, applying artificial intelligence (AI), building a risk management model in tax administration for e-commerce activities.

Effective implementation of Electronic Information Portal

According to the Ministry of Finance, a prominent event effectively implemented by the Taxation sector recently (from March 21, 2022) is the operation of the electronic information portal (Portal) for foreign providers who do not have a permanent business location in Vietnam to register, declare and pay taxes electronically directly to the General Department of Taxation. After just over 8 months of operation, 42 foreign providers have registered, declared and paid taxes on the portal (including major service providers in the world such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, Tik Tok, Microsoft,…) with a tax amount of VND 3,444 billion, 2.5 times higher than in 2021.

Compared with the average statistical tax collection results from 2018 to June 2021 of VND 1,062 billion/year, the tax collected in the first 11 months of 2022 is nearly equal to the total tax collected in the 2018-2021 period. In which, there are 6 large foreign providers as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, TikTok, Netflix, Apple accounting for 90% of the market share of business service revenue from cross-border digital platforms in Vietnam.

This result makes Vietnam one of the four leading countries in the ASEAN region to apply tax collection to foreign providers through an online portal. This is an important step to affirm the country's tax administration sovereignty over cross-border digital-based e-commerce business activities. At the same time, it contributes to raising awareness of and spreading to business community and people about promoting the use of electronic tax services provided by taxation authorities, and at the same time, demonstrating fairness and transparency in implementation of tax obligations to the State between foreign enterprises and domestic enterprises.

For domestic e-commerce activities, the taxation sector has built an e- portal to receive information electronically from e-commerce trading floors, and at the same time, supporting organizations and individuals to declare and pay taxes online tax thereon. The provision of information according to the Decree No. 91/2022/ND-CP takes effect from the information provision period of the fourth quarter of 2022, no later than January 31, 2023. For information provision periods of subsequent quarters, the deadline is the last day of the first month of the following quarter.

In addition, e-portal is a measure to reform, modernize, and apply IT in tax administration to improve the efficiency of tax administration, administrative procedures reform, and saving costs to improve efficiency for businesses. Participating in digital transformation in the digital economy era is becoming an indispensable feature and trend in the world and also in Vietnam.

In the coming time, the Ministry of Finance (General Department of Taxation) will continue to strengthen synchronous and effective implementation of solutions, focusing on perfecting the legal basis for regulations and compliance guidelines; building big database for risk-based tax analysis and management and coordinating with ministries and branches to promote connection and sharing of data to serve e-commerce development, combat tax loss, ensure monetary security, in order to achieve the following goals by 2025:

Firstly, continuing to deploy solutions to manage domestic e-commerce activities and cross-border digital services towards centralizing management data from e-commerce trading floors and cross-border digital service providers to enrich e-commerce database for tax administration; Building a 24/7 automated monitoring system, stipulating the responsibility of e-commerce floors and digital service providers in management coordination.

Secondly, promoting information technology (IT) application in fighting against crimes related to e-commerce, building common information system and database on e-commerce for using among law enforcement forces.

Thirdly, reviewing and completing legal provisions in the field of taxation and other areas of state management in order to improve e-commerce management efficiency, ensuring consistency and in compliance with the national digital transformation strategies.

Tax management solutions for foreign providers in coming time

Given the complex and changing nature of e-commerce sector, the Ministry of Finance has determined strengthening tax administration for e-commerce activities as an important, regular and objectively indispensable task in economic development and development, contributing to the improvement of the country's tax administration system.

Tax administration for e-commerce activities shall base on fairness, uniformity, synchronization, adapting to the change of business environment on digital platform, with close coordination with relevant ministries, branches and localities, and application of IT in controlling and supporting taxpayers to fulfill their tax obligations; ensure a favorable environment, encourage production and business, at the same time, deterring and sanctioning to taxpayers' e-commerce activities of tax law violations. Accordingly, in the coming time, the Ministry of Finance shall continue to strengthen and perfect the legal basis for regulations and compliance guidelines; promote the construction of large databases (Big data) for risk-based tax analysis and management; strengthen inspection and examination for tax administration to foreign providers; promote coordination, research and preparation of contents to participate in the negotiation of multilateral agreements on the right to tax on income from digital economy.

(Thu Hằng)

 

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