Selling a few bouquets of flowers, a few dozen lottery tickets... may have to pay tax

A street lottery vendor only needs to sell about 70 - 80 tickets/day, earning 70,000 - 80,000 VND/day, but the annual revenue also exceeds 200 million VND, and may fall under the taxable area if the proposed tax threshold is not adjusted up.

Street lottery ticket sellers may also be subject to tax when they earn an income of about... 70,000 VND/day. In the photo: a street lottery ticket seller in Can Tho City - Photo: CHI QUOC

According to many business households, the taxable revenue of over 200 million VND/year is completely inappropriate due to the sharp increase in input costs, not to mention that many business lines have specific characteristics, so revenue and profit are "unlike everyone else". Therefore, many opinions say that the tax sector should consider raising the tax threshold or consider the profit factor to come up with a more appropriate and fair tax rate.

Selling a few bouquets of flowers, a few dozen lottery tickets... may have to pay tax

Talking to us, Mr. Phuong Nam - a flower accessories trader in Hanh Thong ward (HCMC, old Go Vap district) - said that the revenue threshold of 200 million VND/year is too low compared to the costs that many businesses have to bear, especially in industries with high daily purchasing power.

According to Mr. Nam, even seemingly low-revenue jobs like selling lottery tickets can easily exceed this mark. A lottery ticket seller must sell an average of 70-80 tickets per day to earn a difference of about 70,000 VND, enough for minimum expenses. But just by selling at that minimum level, the annual revenue has exceeded 200 million VND.

Similarly, just selling a birthday bouquet for about 500,000 VND/bouquet can bring in a daily revenue of 1 million VND. "If the revenue is calculated correctly, even small sellers in remote areas can easily exceed 200 million VND without much difficulty, not just those doing business in the city," said Mr. Nam.

Meanwhile, according to Mr. Nam, the profit margin in the flower accessories industry is extremely low. There are products imported for 800,000 VND but sold for only 820,000 VND, making a profit of about 20,000 VND, equivalent to 2 - 2.5%.

Therefore, to maintain operations, Mr. Nam is forced to do everything himself from importing goods, selling, inventory to transactions.

"Hiring people is like selling salt" - Mr. Nam said and said that households that rent premises and hire additional workers are almost unable to survive. According to some businesses, the 10% profit margin only appears in retail grocery stores but sales are very slow. If they want to sell large quantities, businesses must reduce the profit margin to only a few percent, the lowest possible to compete and use quantity to compensate for profits.

"The level of 200 million VND/year is not close to the price fluctuations. A bowl of pho has increased from 30,000 VND to 40,000 - 50,000 VND, input materials have increased, so revenue naturally has to increase accordingly" - the owner of a business said, adding that switching to the declaration form has created many new costs, especially the requirement to issue VAT invoices for purchased goods.

Previously, businesses could not issue or receive VAT invoices, but when declaring, all input costs increased by 8-10%. Therefore, if a store's revenue under the contract form was only about 180-190 million VND/year, when switching to declaration, just adding the input costs including VAT, the actual revenue after adjustment could easily exceed 200 million VND.

"Businesses still make a profit because they can deduct input tax, while business households suffer losses because all taxes are calculated directly into expenses" - this person analyzed and said that this difference gives businesses a clear competitive advantage, while the business household model is increasingly difficult to maintain.

High revenue does not mean good profit

Expressing concern to us about the revenue threshold of 200 million VND/year or more expected to have to pay tax according to the declaration method, Ms. Dang Thi Hong Khanh, a Cao Dat coffee business owner in Linh Xuan (Thu Duc ward, Ho Chi Minh City) said that this level is too low because the revenue of 600,000 VND/day is only the revenue, not reflecting the cost at all, let alone the profit.

According to Ms. Khanh, if renting a space, the cheapest price is about 200,000 VND/day. Hiring an additional worker for 8 hours at about 20,000 VND/hour, the labor cost is already 160,000 VND/day. So the total cost is up to about 360,000 VND, not to mention other costs such as electricity, water... and especially the products. With the recent high price of coffee, input costs have increased a lot. In fact, the revenue of 550,000 - 600,000 VND/day is still not enough to cover the costs but falling into the tax threshold is very unreasonable.

"To be effective, tax policy must reflect profitability, rather than being applied mechanically based on total revenue.

Business people are willing to contribute to the budget and support transparency, but the shift to tax declaration makes many business households like me quite worried, especially when there are no detailed instructions on using invoices, records and declaration software," said Ms. Khanh.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Van, owner of Dinh Van grocery store (Binh Quoi ward, Ho Chi Minh City), said that with a revenue of 200 million VND/year, it is only necessary to achieve a revenue of more than 550,000 VND/day. At this level, many grocery stores only need to sell 1.5 cases of beer, even many high-value beers only need 1 case. When selling a case of beer, the grocery store only makes a profit of about 10,000 - 20,000 VND, sometimes even lower.

"With such a small profit margin, even after deducting premises and staff costs, there might not be much left, which is very difficult. Therefore, the tax industry needs to consider raising the taxable revenue to share with small businesses," said Ms. Van.

In addition to selling food products in market areas such as Ben Thanh (HCMC), Mr. Nguyen Minh Hien said that he also sells wholesale to shops, so his revenue is up to 1.5 - 2 billion VND/year. However, the price of imported goods increases but the selling price does not increase as fast, leading to a gradual decrease in profits.

Therefore, the tax rate is too high or the taxable revenue threshold is 200 million VND/year will cause difficulties for many business households. Many opinions suggest that in addition to revenue, the tax sector can consider the profit factor to set a taxable threshold, a more reasonable and harmonious tax rate, as well as
ensure fairness for businesses and industries with very different profit margins.

Small traders have difficulty with inventory due to lack of invoices.

Mr. Trinh Minh Hung, representative of the management board of a wholesale fashion market in Ho Chi Minh City, said that in addition to the tax threshold issue, many traders at the market are under great pressure with the issue of origin and input invoices, even though the regulations are about to apply the declared tax.

According to Mr. Hung, due to the nature of wholesale business, traders import a lot of goods to store in warehouses, but in the past, there were no regulations to "tighten" input invoices and documents, so traders did not pay much attention, leading to a large amount of goods remaining in stock without input invoices and documents, which means they are in violation of the new regulations.

"If the tax authorities act now, many traders will be "offside" in terms of invoices and documents, which will significantly affect trading activities, especially in difficult times like now. Therefore, the State should consider extending the time and have a longer roadmap so that small businesses can adapt and manage," said Mr. Hung.

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Source: https://tuoitre.vn/ban-vai-bo-hoa-vai-chuc-to-ve-so-co-the-phai-nop-thue-20251120055149475.htm