Walking along the busy fashion streets, the bustling business scene that should have happened at the end of the year, but now, many stores turn off their lights, close, and hang "Location Rental" signs.
In addition to the preferential shopping trend on e-commerce platforms, high competition and tightening consumer spending, businesses are currently having to bear many types of costs, and have to pay taxes before they can make a profit.
Mr. Le Van Yen - Owner of an export clothing business on Tran Dang Ninh Street, Cau Giay, is considering returning the premises after the 3-month contract has ended.
"The premises I rent for both the first and second floors are 30 million VND/month, the electricity and water bills are 5 million VND/month, the workers are hired 10 million VND/month and other arising expenses. For 1 month alone, I have to pay all kinds of expenses of about 40 million VND/month. I also calculate that I will return the premises and find another job to do because I cannot survive when the rental price increases every year" - Mr. Yen shared.
According to Mr. Yen, clothing business is not like other items when inventory is always a "wing" concern in his heart.
"Selling clothes depends on the weather, winter, and cold weather, I can sell many life jackets, hopefully making a profit. For example, I import 50 life jackets, priced at 200,000 VND/short, if I sell them, I can make a profit of up to 50% but if I can't sell them, I will piled up there, and at the end of the year, I will pack 4 sacks to bring back to my hometown. The rental house is only 45 square meters, not enough space to store goods" - Mr. Yen added.
With the plan to collect tax on income (revenue - cost) for all individuals with revenue according to the new revenue threshold, Mr. Yen found it reasonable. "I think we need to calculate the tax threshold on interest and the rate below 10% for households doing business in clothing, they can survive" - Mr. Yen said.
Similar to the situation, Mr. Nguyen Dinh Van - The owner of a new popular rice business that has been in operation since the beginning of this year said that on average, I sell 45-50 meals a day, each meals cost 25,000 VND. After deducting expenses, I make a profit of 300,000 VND/person per day, and 9,000,000 VND/month per month. Those were days when there were many customers, on weekends there were almost no customers, I almost had to close.
"From now until Tet, if I can't hold on, I have to find a way to change direction. My children have to send their parents to the countryside and to the city without enough funds to maintain their lives," Mr. Van frankly said.
For small business scale, Mr. Van proposed a tax rate of 500-600 million VND/year.
The tax rate should be based on the minimum income
Talking to reporters, a representative of an accounting services company and a tax agent said that the revenue threshold of 200 million VND/year to determine that business households that must pay taxes is currently low compared to market reality. With prices, input costs and living expenses increasing sharply in recent years, this revenue level no longer accurately reflects the ability of business households to generate income.
According to this person, the proposal to increase the tax rate to VND1.5 billion/year would be appropriate. Because for small business households, the common profit rate is only around 15-20%. If the revenue is 1.5 billion VND/year, the profit of 20% is equivalent to about 300 million VND. After paying taxes and paying operating expenses such as premises, electricity, water, labor, etc., the remaining amount is only equivalent to the taxable income of salaried employees.
Experts say that determining the taxable threshold of business households should be based on the minimum income to ensure the lives of workers. Currently, salary workers have to pay tax from an income of about 15.5 million VND/month. Therefore, business households - which are also direct laborers generating income - need to apply an equivalent threshold to ensure fairness and consistency with production and business reality.
