Reducing online business tax fraud

In 2025, another information technology application deployed in tax management is the Electronic Information Portal for households and individuals doing business to register, declare, and pay taxes from e-commerce and business on digital platforms.

In 2025, another information technology application deployed in tax management is the Electronic Information Portal for households and individuals doing business to register, declare, and pay taxes from e-commerce and business on digital platforms.

“Using this application in tax management will reduce the number of e-commerce traders who want to evade taxes,” said Ms. Nguyen Thi Cuc, Chairwoman of the Vietnam Tax Consulting Association.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Cuc, President of Vietnam Tax Consultants Association

After putting the Electronic Information Portal for Foreign Suppliers (etaxvn.gdt.gov.vn) into operation, the tax sector has recently launched an Electronic Information Portal for business households and individuals to register, declare, and pay taxes from e-commerce. What is your assessment of this?

The implementation of etaxvn.gdt.gov.vn has shown that tax management is very effective, not only increasing state budget revenue, reducing work pressure in tax management, but also minimizing time, effort and costs for taxpayers, creating conditions for foreign suppliers not present in Vietnam to comply with tax laws when having revenue in Vietnam.

According to data from the General Department of Taxation, since the time of launching etaxvn.gdt.gov.vn (March 21, 2022), 120 foreign suppliers have registered, declared and paid taxes with the amount of tax declared and paid directly via etaxvn.gdt.gov.vn in 2024 being VND 8,687 billion, an increase of 26% over the same period in 2023, exceeding 74% of the estimate.

With the success in applying information technology in tax management for foreign suppliers, on December 19, 2024, the tax sector put into operation the Electronic Information Portal for business households and individuals to register, declare and pay taxes from e-commerce. This portal will support all business households and individuals doing business on e-commerce trading floors such as Shopee, Lazada, Tiki; providing goods and services on social networks Facebook, Zalo; individuals receiving income from advertising activities on platforms such as Google, YouTube; individuals providing software on application markets CH Play, Apple Store and having income from business on other platforms to register for tax, declare tax and pay tax easily and conveniently.

The portal contributes to improving the efficiency of tax management for e-commerce business activities. Taxpayer declaration information is an important source of information in the large database on e-commerce; serving tax management based on risk, helping tax authorities identify acts of non-declaration, tax payment, and tax evasion; meeting the requirements of state management of e-commerce through the digital environment.

Do you think that putting this Portal into operation will reduce tax fraud and tax evasion in e-commerce?

Certainly, because the tax industry is very determined to fight against tax losses for e-commerce businesses under the direction of the Government, the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance . Many cases of tax evasion have been detected, collected, fined, and even investigated, prosecuted and prosecuted by the police. In response to this move, many people doing business and earning income on the internet have proactively gone to the tax office to declare and pay taxes.

Declaring and paying taxes directly takes a lot of time and effort for both the tax authority and the taxpayer. In case of late payment or underpayment, taxpayers will suffer losses and in many cases, they will have to pay fines for not declaring and paying taxes on time. Therefore, when the Portal is available, I believe that taxpayers will comply with tax laws better, and tax fraud and tax evasion in e-commerce will decrease sharply.

What advantages do e-commerce businesses have when registering and declaring and paying taxes via the Electronic Information Portal, madam?

According to current regulations, households and individuals participating in commercial business (regardless of traditional business or e-commerce) with registration must pay tax at a rate of 1.5% on revenue, of which 1% is value added tax and 0.5% of revenue is personal income tax; service provision activities are 7% commission, of which 5% is value added tax and 2% is personal income tax. However, e-commerce business does not have a specific, fixed address, so it cannot register for business, does not register, declare tax, then when income arises, it must temporarily deduct 10% of personal income tax on the income and at the end of the year, it must declare, finalize tax and pay tax according to the progressive tax table, from 5% to 35%.

I have met and discussed with many livestreamers whose sales revenue is up to tens, even hundreds of billions of VND and many e-commerce businesses with very large incomes. They all want to register for tax, declare tax, and pay tax. When the Electronic Information Portal comes into operation, e-commerce businesses will definitely proactively register for tax, declare tax, and pay tax because they only have to pay at a rate of 1.5% of revenue or 7% of the commission received. With a reasonable tax rate, taxpayer compliance will be enhanced and tax fraud will be minimized.

Digital transformation is being implemented very strongly. How do you evaluate the application of information technology in tax management?

I have been to Indonesia, the Philippines and many other countries to learn how to apply information technology to tax management. But now, although modest, I must say that Vietnam has applied information technology to tax management ahead of many countries in the world and the region, including countries where the tax sector has gone to learn from experience.

While many countries are still struggling with how to manage personal taxes, Vietnam has the eTaxmobile application (app). With this application, individuals only need a smartphone with an Internet connection to register to open an electronic tax transaction account with the tax authority; look up personal income tax obligations; registration fees; non- agricultural land use tax; financial obligations on land...; pay electronic taxes through online connection and integration with the commercial banking system. In particular, with just a phone, anywhere, any place, individuals can look up tax declaration records; tax settlement; taxpayer information; dependent information and many other utilities for taxpayers.

In addition to the current information technology system, the tax industry will soon apply "virtual assistants", and taxpayer support activities will take a new step forward, madam?

The General Department of Taxation is piloting a virtual assistant application (Chatbot) to support taxpayers. I was invited to attend the Chatbot Launch Ceremony of the Hanoi Tax Department. Here, I asked the Chatbot about settling personal income tax in 2024 if I have multiple sources of income, and in less than 5 seconds, I got an answer and specific instructions.

Proactively transforming digitally and strongly applying information technology, I know that in 2024, the tax industry supported more than 3.2 million taxpayers via email, social networks, and tax authority websites. This is a quick and effective form of support, in line with the digital transformation trend and saves costs.

After putting the Electronic Information Portal for households and individuals doing business to register, declare and pay taxes from e-commerce into operation, the tax industry will deploy Chatbot and a series of other information technology applications to support taxpayers. In reality, only when taxpayers are better supported and tax policies are more reasonable, will tax compliance among people and businesses be higher and tax evasion will be reduced.

Applying information technology to support taxpayers not only benefits taxpayers, but also reduces risks for tax authorities and minimizes workload and pressure.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/giam-thieu-gian-lan-thue-kinh-doanh-qua-mang-d241076.html