On October 9, at the 2024 Business and Law Forum, a representative of the Vietnam E-commerce Association commented that e-commerce is currently making a huge contribution to the economy. Tax management revenue in 2023 from this industry reached 3.5 million billion VND, contributing 97,000 billion VND to the state budget through taxes and is on an upward trend.
However, according to this person, the e-commerce business environment is also facing many difficulties and may face "big dangers" in the near future. That is the proposal that e-commerce platforms must declare and pay taxes on behalf of business households and individuals.
"We think this is an impossible task. Because e-commerce platforms cannot have enough information and resources to declare and pay taxes on behalf of hundreds of thousands of individuals and business households on e-commerce platforms" - a representative of the Vietnam E-commerce Association expressed his opinion and asked the authorities to carefully consider this proposal.
Responding right at the forum, Mr. Mai Xuan Thanh - Directorate of Tax Directorate made a comparison about the transfer of tax declaration and payment obligations of individuals and business households to e-commerce platforms.
"If we declare, our business households and individuals have over 156,000, and the floors have over 400. So which social cost solution is better? Currently, in reality, some floors are declaring and paying on our behalf. All the data is available through the floors," said Mr. Mai Xuan Thanh.
Directorate General Mai Xuan Thanh added that some international organizations OECD, IMF, WB all recommend that countries should let exchanges declare and pay on their behalf.
"This is a new issue that needs to be discussed. We agree that there will be two-way opinions when it is raised. But we think that the benefits should be considered carefully," said Mr. Thanh.
Previously, in the draft revised Law on Tax Administration submitted to the National Assembly later this year, the Ministry of Finance proposed that e-commerce platforms would declare and pay taxes on behalf of sellers.
