Cross-border businesses providing services directly to individual users earn huge revenue from Vietnamese customers but they have not paid taxes to Vietnam.

Tax revenue from cross-border e-commerce activities reached more than VND1 trillion (US$43.5 million) in the first nine months of this year.

Bui Huu Thanh, the owner of the mutant orchid garden, said that he has actually sold a Ngoc Son Cuoc mutant orchid for VND250 billion following reports that the transaction was fake.

Total tax collection in 2020 is estimated at over VND1.26 quadrillion ($54.37 billion), equivalent to 100.6 percent of the estimate, Deputy Director of the General Department of Taxation Dang Ngoc Minh said on December 31.

More than VND1.48 quadrillion (US$64.2 billion) was collected for the State budget in 2020, equivalent to 98 per cent of the target, according to the Ministry of Finance.

The amount of tax collected from cross-border platforms in the first 11 months of 2020 was about VND1 trillion. But the figure doesn’t truly reflect the real activities of the platforms in Vietnam.

State auditors have found incorrect application of land rent remission policy in some provinces that did not adjust land rents after the rent stabilization period expired.

The Hanoi Tax Department has cooperated with Hanoi Television to make a TV segment publicizing the names of companies with large tax arrears, with four debtors to be named in the first phase.

The total collection for the state budget may exceed VND46 trillion may not be good news, because the sources of revenue are uncertain and the collection from enterprises has decreased.

The collection of tax from cross-border services, or services provided by foreign firms via internet to users in Vietnam, is included in the amended Tax Management Tax, expected to take effect in early 2020.