Online platforms pay $166 million in tax in Vietnam

Vietnam collected VND3.94 trillion (US$166.5 million) in taxes from 57 foreign online platforms including Google, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, and TikTok in the first half of this year.

Of the sum, VND3.4 trillion was paid directly via the portal of the General Department of Taxation (GDT), which was established last March to make it easier for cross-border giants to pay their taxes in Vietnam.

The remaining sum was paid by their representatives in Vietnam.

The GDT also said that tax revenue from e-commerce platforms in the first five months of this year reached VND246 billion, equal to 34% of 2022’s revenue.

It said the tax revenue collected from e-commerce providers in 2022 and 2021 was VND716 billion and VND261 billion respectively.

Up to now, the tax authority has recorded data from over 330 e-commerce platforms through the e-commerce portal operating since the end of last year. 

Particularly in the first quarter of this year, there were 64,300 individuals and 22,840 organizations trading on those platforms with 9 billion transactions registering a total value of VND11.5 trillion.

The GDT said that it is working on setting up rules on exploiting information from databases received from e-commerce platforms in order to manage taxes more effectively.

This agency is checking and comparing information of a number of taxpayers who are e-commerce platform owners, payment intermediaries, partners of foreign companies in Vietnam, and foreign suppliers that do not have a fixed business establishment in Vietnam.

So far, it has inspected 15 enterprises and handled, fined, or collected tax arrears of VND129 billion, reducing tax loss by VND986 billion and reducing VAT deduction by VND114 billion.

By Quynh Trang – VnExpress.net – July 22, 2023