Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Big data on e-commerce would help thetax watchdog to efficiently collect tax from foreign cross-border IT servicesproviders, according to Nguyen Bang Thang, director of Tax ManagementDepartment of Large Enterprises.

Statistics showed that cross-border IT services and social network providersincluding Google, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, TikTok and Microsoft, paid around 4trillion VND (169.5 million USD) in taxes in the first half of this year,compared to 3.5 trillion VND for the full last year.

The tax that Vietnam collected on the providers remained modest compared to therevenue of the retail e-commerce market which reached 16.4 billion USD in 2022,statistics of Vietnam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency showed.

It was estimated that Vietnam’s retail e-commerce market would expand by 25% tohit 20.5 billion USD this year.

On the e-commerce market, six foreign providers namely Meta(Facebook), Google, Microsoft, TikTok, Netflix and Apple, accounted for about90% of the revenue on cross-border digital platforms in Vietnam.

In the field of digital advertising, according to Kantar Media Vietnam,the revenue on platforms such as Facebook, Youtube and TikTok reached 2.5billion USD in 2023 and is forecast at 3.4 billion USD this year.

Thang said that the tax watchdog would continue to createfavourable conditions for foreign providers and domestic establishments whichwere seriously developing business in Vietnam. At the same time, strictpunishments would be applied to violations, he stressed.

He added that the tax watchdog regularly cooperated with relevant agencies toanalyse risks related to tax declaration of foreign providers and authorisedorganisations for handling measures. Experiences from other countries,including the US and the EU, showed that the development of big data one-commerce would be critical to ensure efficiency in tax management oncross-border platforms.

Admitting tax loss in e-commerce, Nguyen Thi Minh Huyen, deputy director ofVietnam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency, said that the legal regulationson tax collection in the industry were still in the process of being improved.

Huyen said that a mechanism for data sharing between relevant managementagencies must be raised to prevent cross-border tax loss.
According to Hoang Van Cuong, deputy of the National Assembly’sFinance – Budget Committee, the focus must be placed on strengthening digitaltransformation to have an adequate data for easy and efficient tax management.

The Ministry of Finance targeted to increase domestic tax collection by 5-7% in2024 with one of the focuses on enhancing the efficiency in tax collection fromcross-border e-commerce./.