Tax declaration and payment on behalf of e-commerce platform owners do not create a burden

The Ministry of Finance proposed to add the responsibility of e-commerce trading floor owners to declare and pay taxes on behalf of individuals in the Law amending and supplementing a number of laws in the financial sector, expected to be submitted to the National Assembly for comments at the 8th Session.

Mr. Dang Ngoc Minh, Deputy General Director of General Department of Taxation.

According to Mr. Dang Ngoc Minh, Deputy General Director of the General Department of Taxation, this regulation does not create a burden for businesses.

Sir, what is the current responsibility of e-commerce platform owners in tax management?

The Law on Tax Administration clearly stipulates the responsibility of organizations and individuals involved in tax administration to provide taxpayer information to tax authorities, including agencies issuing investment registration certificates, business registration certificates, establishment and operation licenses; State Treasury; commercial banks; state management agencies on housing and land; police; organizations and individuals paying income; state management agencies on trade.

Thus, the responsibility for tax management, including the provision of taxpayer information, is the responsibility of agencies, organizations, and enterprises, not just the owners of e-commerce platforms. For enterprises that are owners of e-commerce platforms, Decree 91/2022/ND-CP stipulates that the owners of e-commerce platforms are responsible for providing complete, accurate, and timely information to tax authorities as prescribed by regulations of traders, organizations, and individuals who conduct part or all of the process of buying and selling goods and services on e-commerce trading platforms.

The Law on Tax Administration requiring the provision of personal information for online business has received disagreement from e-commerce platform owners. After a period of implementation, how is the provision of information?

Requiring e-commerce platform owners to provide information to tax authorities does not cost businesses time, effort and financial costs, because the information is provided periodically every quarter via the General Department of Taxation's Electronic Information Portal. To support e-commerce platforms in providing information about individuals doing business on the platform, on December 15, 2022, the General Department of Taxation operated the E-commerce Information Portal to receive information about organizations and individuals doing business on the platform from e-commerce trading platforms.

After 4 periods of providing information, the E-commerce Information Portal has recorded 357 e-commerce trading floors providing information. According to the information provided by the e-commerce floors, the number of organizations and individuals participating in business on the floor is more than 191,000 units, with a total transaction value of nearly 59,000 billion VND.

The General Department of Taxation has upgraded its internal application to analyze and process data provided by the platform, thereby supporting tax authorities at all levels in exploiting and serving tax management work in the area. We also continue to deploy electronic tax services, to facilitate taxpayers in general and taxpayers doing e-commerce business in particular.

With the information provided by e-commerce platforms, tax management for business activities on digital platforms has become more effective. So why are e-commerce platform owners required to declare and pay taxes on behalf of business people on the platform?

For the e-commerce business model through the platform, the current regulations only stipulate that domestic platforms are responsible for providing information of organizations and individuals doing business through the platform to the tax authorities. Individuals doing business on e-commerce platforms still have to declare and pay taxes directly to the tax authorities like traditional commercial and service business activities, because there are no separate regulations.

The fact that hundreds of thousands of online business people have to directly declare and pay taxes clearly costs a lot of time, effort, and money for online business people and even tax authorities. Not to mention, many online sellers do not have knowledge or experience in accounting, invoices, and documents, so it is very difficult to declare taxes, even having to spend money to hire tax accounting services, many cases accidentally owe taxes and have to pay late payment fees with a large amount.

To facilitate individuals doing business on e-commerce platforms, the Ministry of Finance proposes that when amending a number of articles of the Law on Tax Administration, it should supplement regulations on cases of tax declaration and payment on behalf of business households and business individuals with e-commerce business activities and direct tax declaration with business households and business individuals with e-commerce business activities to reform administrative procedures, focus on declaration points, and meet tax declaration and payment requirements in accordance with the characteristics of e-commerce business activities.

Requiring e-commerce platform owners to declare and pay taxes on their behalf clearly reduces costs, time, and effort for online businesses and tax authorities, but puts the burden on e-commerce platforms?

Although the Law on Tax Administration does not require e-commerce platforms to declare and pay taxes on behalf of online traders, in order to facilitate online traders, Circular 40/2021/TT-BTC encourages this form, when stipulating that organizations, including owners of e-commerce trading platforms, shall declare and pay taxes on behalf of individuals on the basis of authorization in accordance with the provisions of civil law. Owners of e-commerce platforms shall declare and pay taxes on behalf of individuals according to the roadmap of the tax authority.

During the time when tax declaration and payment on behalf of individuals are not yet performed, the organization that owns the e-commerce trading floor must be responsible for providing information related to the business activities of individuals through the floor at the request of tax authorities in accordance with the provisions of law.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/khai-thue-nop-thue-thay-khong-tao-ganh-nang-cho-chu-san-thuong-mai-dien-tu-d226514.html