Tax management for households and individuals doing business:

This has raised the issue of gradually shifting to a mechanism where taxpayers self-declare and self-pay, while tax authorities focus on monitoring and inspection.

Taxpayers transact at the "one-stop" department of the Tax Department of Region I, March 2025.

“Lump sum tax” is no longer suitable

By the end of 2024, the country will have 3.6 million business households under tax management. Revenue from business households and individual businesses in 2024 will reach VND 25,953 billion, equal to 120% of revenue in 2023.

However, Deputy Director of the Tax Department Mai Son said that the results of tax management for business households and individuals doing business have not yet met the requirements, especially the need for breakthrough solutions in tax management for business households and individuals doing business on digital platforms, restaurant, hotel and service businesses to minimize the tricks of "circumventing the law" to evade taxes.

In reality, there are still some difficulties in managing revenue and tax rates for business households. For business households and individuals paying taxes by the lump sum method (contracted households), some households declare lower revenue than actual to reduce the amount of tax payable. For business households and individuals paying taxes by the declaration method (declared households), business households tend to choose the lump sum method instead of the declaration method. Declared households also have a situation where they do not store or have invoices or documents for purchased goods; they issue incomplete invoices for sold goods and services, etc.

Many opinions say that, in a period, the application of the "lump sum tax" policy is completely appropriate. However, currently, business activities are increasingly diversified with many new models, especially business on e-commerce platforms. This has posed significant challenges to management agencies, including tax agencies, due to the diversity and large number of participants.

Taxpayers self-declare and self-pay

Therefore, the general orientation of tax management for business households in the Project "Innovation and improvement of tax management quality for business households" recently issued by the Tax sector is that taxpayers self-declare and self-pay taxes. Tax authorities will not carry out tax determination but focus on monitoring and inspection based on data and information technology.

Specifically, for declaring households, focus on strictly controlling input and output invoices and requiring full implementation of accounting regimes to improve transparency and accuracy in tax declaration. Tax authorities implement measures to force business households to use electronic invoices, ensuring that all transactions of goods and services are fully recorded, limiting tax fraud through not issuing invoices or dishonestly declaring revenue.

For contracted households, focus on requiring taxpayers to self-declare revenue close to actual occurrence, ensuring transparency and fairness in tax obligations. Tax authorities increase the application of information technology, comparing data from multiple sources such as bank transactions, electronic invoices, and reports from related units to check the accuracy of declared revenue.

For businesses on e-commerce platforms, tax authorities require platforms to declare and pay taxes on behalf of sellers, ensuring tax collection is transparent and accurate. E-commerce platforms are responsible for synthesizing transaction data and revenue of each business and fulfilling tax obligations according to regulations, helping to limit tax evasion and dishonest declarations.

For businesses that do not operate on e-commerce platforms, tax authorities will closely coordinate with relevant units such as banks, market management agencies, telecommunications and electricity service providers to collect data on transactions, cash flows and actual revenue. Building a centralized data system will help tax authorities closely control taxpayers, promptly detect cases of false declarations, thereby improving tax management efficiency and ensuring fairness in tax obligations.

According to the leader of the Tax Department, the Tax sector manages taxes for business households and individual businesses with high determination and a scientific and methodical approach through serious research on management practices, making the most of advances in science and technology, applying artificial intelligence (AI), big data to develop tax management applications, especially the eTax Mobile electronic tax application.

Dr. Nguyen Thi Cam Giang, Faculty of Finance, Banking Academy, acknowledged that promoting the application of risk management for business households and individuals is an urgent requirement to promptly detect and accurately identify subjects with signs of violating the law on tax and invoice use. Based on a centralized big data platform, tax authorities carry out activities to analyze, evaluate and rank risks for business households and individuals in order to include them in the inspection or apply appropriate tax management measures.

Source: https://hanoimoi.vn/quan-ly-thue-voi-ho-ca-nhan-kinh-doanh-chuyen-sang-co-che-tu-ke-khai-tu-nop-thue-699533.html