More than 300,000 stalls have not identified the seller

About 300,000 stores with revenue of 70,000 billion VND on Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, Sendo, and Grab platforms have not been identified, causing budget losses.

In the draft Decree on tax management for businesses on e-commerce platforms, the Ministry of Finance said that there are about 300,000 individuals selling goods on more than 400 platforms, according to data provided by parties to the tax authorities. The amount of tax this group paid last year was about VND2,500 billion.

In addition to the above number, according to the operator, a large number of business booths on commercial platforms have not yet identified the seller. Statistics on the 5 major e-commerce platforms (Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, Sendo, Grab) alone show that there are more than 300,000 booths that have not yet identified the user. The estimated business turnover of this group is over 70,000 billion VND.

The size of the e-commerce market has grown strongly in recent years, from 16.4 billion USD in 2022 to 25 billion USD in 2024. Last year, the tax industry collected a record 116,000 billion VND from this sector, a significant increase compared to the 83,000 - 97,000 billion VND recorded in the previous two years.

Recently, besides the presence of domestic retail e-commerce platforms such as Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada, Tiki and Sendo, the market is witnessing the arrival of cross-border platforms such as Temu, Shein... These floors are also subject to declaration and tax payment as foreign suppliers.

The tax collected accounts for only about 20% of the revenue of this market. However, this proportion is on a downward trend from 20.1% in 2022 to 17.4% in 2024. This, according to the Ministry of Finance, shows that many businesses have not declared and paid taxes as prescribed.

For example, households and individuals doing business on e-commerce platforms for accommodation services such as Booking, Agoda, Airbnb, Tripadvisor. Or digital information content platforms, social networks such as Netflix, Spotify, Google, Youtube, Facebook, Tiktok, Apple Store, CH Play...

The market also has a new business segment, which is individuals with great influence (KOL-Key Opinion Leader) in society. They sell products on platforms through livestream advertising goods and services. Some KOLs have revenue of tens and hundreds of billions of VND.

Therefore, in the draft Decree, the Ministry of Finance proposes to apply regulations on the management of e-commerce platforms and digital platforms to deduct and pay taxes on behalf of households and individuals selling on the platform. Tax declaration and payment on behalf of both residents and non-residents in Vietnam.

"This will help increase state budget revenue with income from businesses of households and individuals trading on the floor, especially unidentified subjects," said the Ministry of Finance.

The agency also said that this is the method being applied by many countries, such as the UK, the US, Australia, Germany, and China. The OECD also recommends that countries stipulate that the creators of digital platforms (electronic trading floors) have full and sole responsibility for determining the amount of tax payable on orders, collecting and submitting it to the tax authorities.

Source