On October 7, in Hanoi, the Ministry of Industry and Trade held a meeting of the Drafting Committee of the Law on E-commerce, chaired by Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Sinh Nhat Tan.
At the meeting, representatives of the Tax Department and the Ministry of Finance contributed many opinions focusing on issues of data storage, building e-commerce databases and tax policies for this field.
The Tax Department proposes to extend the minimum data storage period of information on goods and services posted on e-commerce platforms from 24 months or more, instead of 1 year as drafted, to comply with Decree 53/2022/ND-CP guiding the Law on Cyber Security, while effectively supporting tax management for e-commerce transactions and livestream sales.
Regarding Article 44 on e-commerce databases, the Tax Department proposed to clarify the responsibility of the Ministry of Industry and Trade in three contents: promulgating standards for data connection between ministries and branches; developing technical infrastructure to serve information sharing; and establishing a data sharing mechanism with relevant ministries and branches.
Regarding tax policy, the Tax Department supports the study of appropriate incentives to promote e-commerce, but emphasizes that incentives must be integrated into tax legal infrastructure such as the Law on Value Added Tax and the Law on Corporate Income Tax. This agency said that e-commerce tax revenue this year has increased by 50-60%, thanks to a portion of tax collection from previous years, at the same time, with increasingly synchronous and transparent management efficiency.
At the meeting, representatives of the Ministry of Science and Technology proposed reviewing and eliminating unnecessary or unused terms in Article 3 of the draft Law. In addition, regarding electronic contract certification services, the Ministry proposes to expand the scope of "electronic contract data" to include certificates, documents and data arising during the process both before and after signing, ensuring integrity and evidence value.
In addition, it is necessary to supplement regulations on prohibited acts under relevant laws; extend data storage time to more than 24 months to suit the characteristics of electronic transactions; revise overlapping or inconsistent provisions, such as in Articles 35 and 47. The Ministry of Science and Technology also proposed to supplement regulations on license changes, revise content related to handling violations and transitional provisions, to ensure consistency, feasibility and synchronization with current legal regulations, the representative of the Ministry of Science and Technology stated.
