'Bulk' tax revenue from e-commerce activities

In the first half of 2024, tax revenue from e-commerce increased sharply compared to the same period in 2023 after tax authorities applied information technology to review information on e-commerce activities.

Mr. Le Tuan, Director of a business in Hanoi specializing in selling sports products on e-commerce platforms, said that all sales information has been approved by the authorities. tax collect, verify and request businesses to pay additional taxes if the declaration is not complete.

“Business on e-commerce platforms is increasingly fierce. Since the beginning of 2024, all business costs have increased, from import fees, fees paid to e-commerce platforms, advertising costs to rental and labor costs. In particular, sellers on e-commerce platforms can no longer avoid taxes because tax authorities have introduced a series of solutions to collect, connect, and collect seller data,” Mr. Tuan shared.

With data review measures, e-commerce tax collection is increasing.

Mr. Phi Van Toan - in charge of sales on the e-commerce platform of a home appliance brand in Hanoi also said that recently, sellers on e-commerce platforms have encountered many difficulties due to the constantly increasing selling costs. Mr. Toan said that a product he is selling has a cost price of 342 thousand VND, the selling price on the e-commerce platform is 429 thousand VND. Overall, the seller has a profit of 87,000 VND/product. However, the seller will actually have to bear this amount of fixed costs of 4%, payment fee of 5%, free shipping fee of 6%, coupon fee of 3%...

According to the 2023 E-commerce White Paper, the number of Vietnamese consumers participating in online shopping increased to 61 million, an increase of more than 7% over the same period last year. The estimated value of online shopping per person reached 336 USD/year, an increase of more than 16%.

“With a normal store without free shipping or discount codes, each household product is subject to a floor fee of 39.3 thousand VND. Therefore, the actual profit of the product after deducting the floor fee is only about 47.6 thousand VND. If the store participates in the promotion program of the e-commerce platform, the profit of each product will decrease to only 4 - 21 thousand VND/product depending on the promotion program the seller chooses,” Mr. Toan shared.

Faced with the reality that e-commerce business is increasingly difficult due to the decrease in purchasing power of people and the increase in selling costs, Mr. Toan hopes that the authorities will provide more support to reduce taxes and fees. According to Mr. Toan, when taxes and fees are reduced, the selling price of products will decrease and stimulate people's demand. From there, the amount of goods sold will increase, and tax revenue will increase accordingly.

According to the General Department of Taxation, by June 2024, the country had 383 e-commerce trading floors providing information, an increase of 22 floors compared to the end of 2023.

According to the General Department of Taxation, in the first 6 months of 2024, 101 foreign suppliers registered, declared and paid taxes of more than VND 4,039 billion. Accumulated from the time of implementing the Electronic Information Portal for Foreign Suppliers, to date, the total tax paid is more than VND 15,600 billion.

Regarding domestic e-commerce activities, in the first 6 months of 2024, the total revenue managed by tax authorities was 1.8 million billion VND, the amount of tax paid was about 50 thousand billion VND, an increase of 23% over the same period in 2023. Previously, in 2023, the revenue managed was 3.5 million billion VND, the amount of tax paid was 97 thousand billion VND.

According to the leader of the Department of Tax Management for Small and Medium Enterprises, Business Households and Individuals (General Department of Taxation), the tax authority has build inspection plan for taxpayers operating in the fields of e-commerce, digital platform business, and live sales. In the first 6 months of the year, the tax authority handled violations of 4,560 taxpayers (including 1,274 enterprises and 3,286 individuals). The total amount of tax collected and fined was 297 billion VND.

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