The tax authority of HCMC has collected VND21 billion (nearly US$925,000) in tax from online stores while asking nearly 14,000 individuals and organizations selling goods on Facebook to fulfill their tax obligations, heard a meeting of the city government on December 6.

Tran Ngoc Tam, head of the HCMC Department of Taxation, said e-commerce has grown more popular, with the participation of many local and foreign vendors. However, Vietnam is still struggling to tax online stores. 

Data of the HCMC Department of Industry and Trade shows that as of September 2017, the city had nearly 300 electronic trading platforms, more than 8,000 e-commerce sites, and 73 social networking sites.

Particularly, there are nearly 14,000 individuals and organizations in the city selling goods on Facebook, one of the most popular social networking sites in the country.

“The HCMC Department of Taxation has collected VND21 billion in tax from online stores and written to nearly 14,000 vendors on Facebook asking them to pay taxes,” Tam said.

This is an encouraging result to continue finding solutions for e-commerce taxation.

According to Tam, tax authorities have cooperated with banks to monitor transactions involving foreign sellers to determine their taxable incomes. However, there have not been sufficient legal grounds to tax them.

For cash transactions, the Ministry of Finance suggested deals worth more than VND10 million (US$440) be paid through a bank account.

SGT