The General Department of Taxation recently held an online meeting to discuss tax management for e-commerce activities with representatives of the Vietnam E-commerce Association and businesses and e-commerce platforms such as: Sen Do Technology Joint Stock Company; Shopee, Recess, Tiki, TikTok, pte.ltd, Grab.

According to Deputy Director General of the General Department of Taxation Mai Son, based on the provisions of Decree 91/2022/ND-CP, e-commerce platforms are responsible for providing complete, accurate and timely information to tax authorities as prescribed by the regulations of traders, organizations and individuals who conduct part or all of the process of buying and selling goods and services on the e-commerce trading platform.

Data provided by e-commerce platforms to tax authorities is still incomplete.

To support e-commerce platforms, on December 15, 2022, the General Department of Taxation officially launched the E-commerce Portal with the feature of receiving information from e-commerce platforms. Up to now, after 8 periods of information provision (from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2024), the General Department of Taxation has obtained a database of transactions provided by e-commerce platforms, with information of sellers on the platform such as: identification information (name, tax code/business registration/CCCD), contact information (email, phone number), business address, residential address, business service industry group, bank account.

However, through the process of analyzing data collected from e-commerce platforms, the General Department of Taxation found that there is still a phenomenon of incomplete and unreliable data.

Director of the Department of Tax Management for Small and Medium Enterprises and Business Households and Individuals Nguyen Thi Lan Anh added that the data provided by e-commerce platforms still lacks information such as transaction value and does not have information on successful transactions, so it is necessary to review it before using it for tax management.

The representative of the General Department of Taxation said that, in order to carry out the task of proposing the development of legal documents in draft 1 of the Law amending 7 Laws, including amending and supplementing the Law on Tax Administration, in the draft Law regulating the responsibility of e-commerce platforms to deduct and pay taxes on behalf of individuals doing business on e-commerce platforms, the General Department of Taxation is proposing to add the responsibility of deducting, paying taxes on behalf of, and declaring the deducted tax amount for business households and individuals.

Therefore, in order for the regulation to be applied in practice after being approved by the National Assembly, the General Department of Taxation would like to receive comments from e-commerce platforms and the Vietnam E-commerce Association to discuss and resolve difficulties and obstacles, thereby creating the most favorable conditions for all three parties (taxpayers, e-commerce platforms and tax authorities).

The General Department of Taxation said that at the meeting, representatives of the Vietnam E-commerce Association and e-commerce platforms agreed that most taxpayers participating in production and business activities want to comply with tax policies and laws. However, the provision of incomplete information needs to consider both subjective and objective factors from e-commerce platforms and tax authorities.

A recommendation from e-commerce platforms is that tax authorities should review, research and revise the form requesting e-commerce platforms to provide information in a simple, easy-to-understand and easy-to-implement manner, especially providing information technology application solutions to support and receive large-volume data input. In addition, it is also necessary to improve the error reporting mechanism in data rendering and data transmission...

Faced with difficulties of enterprises and e-commerce platforms, the leaders of the General Department of Taxation requested the presiding unit to fully absorb comments and suggestions, propose solutions, and promptly supplement IT solutions to support e-commerce platforms in providing information according to regulations.

In addition, immediately establish a Working Group to support the provision of information from e-commerce platforms to directly support e-commerce platforms in implementing tax policies in the most favorable way.

“The working group must operate with the highest responsibility to provide maximum support to taxpayers and e-commerce platforms in business activities to ensure transparency, fairness and compliance with tax laws. In addition, it is necessary to promptly report to the General Department's leaders any problems arising during the coordination process to have immediate solutions,” Mai Son, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Taxation, directed.