Filing and paying taxes on behalf of others does not create a burden for e-commerce platform owners.

The Ministry of Finance has proposed adding the responsibility of e-commerce platform owners to file and pay taxes on behalf of individuals in the Law amending and supplementing a number of laws in the financial sector, which is expected to be submitted to the National Assembly for consideration at the eighth session.

Mr. Dang Ngoc Minh, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Taxation.

According to Mr. Dang Ngoc Minh, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Taxation, this regulation does not create a burden for businesses.

Sir, what are the current tax responsibilities of e-commerce platform owners?

The Law on Tax Administration clearly stipulates the responsibilities of relevant organizations and individuals in tax administration, including providing taxpayer information to tax authorities. These include agencies issuing investment registration certificates, business registration certificates, establishment and operation licenses; the State Treasury; commercial banks; state management agencies for housing and land; the police; organizations and individuals paying income; and state management agencies for trade.

Therefore, the responsibility for tax management, including providing taxpayer information, rests with agencies, organizations, and businesses, not solely with the owners of e-commerce platforms. For businesses that own e-commerce platforms, Decree 91/2022/ND-CP stipulates that the owner of the e-commerce platform is responsible for providing the tax authorities with complete, accurate, and timely information on merchants, organizations, and individuals conducting part or all of the buying and selling of goods and services on the e-commerce platform.

The requirement in the Tax Administration Law to provide personal information for online businesses has met with disapproval from e-commerce platform owners. After a period of implementation, how will this information be provided?

Requiring e-commerce platform owners to provide information to tax authorities does not consume time, effort, or financial resources for businesses, as the information is provided quarterly through the General Department of Taxation's electronic portal. To support e-commerce platforms in providing information on individual businesses operating on their platforms, on December 15, 2022, the General Department of Taxation launched the e-commerce portal to receive information on organizations and individuals doing business on the platforms from e-commerce trading platforms.

After four rounds of information provision, the e-commerce portal has recorded 357 e-commerce platforms that have provided information. According to the information provided by these platforms, the number of organizations and individuals participating in business on their platforms is over 191,000, with a total transaction value of nearly 59,000 billion VND.

The General Department of Taxation has upgraded its internal application to analyze and process data provided by the platform, thereby supporting tax authorities at all levels in utilizing this data for tax management in their respective areas. We are also continuing to deploy electronic tax services to facilitate taxpayers in general, and those engaged in e-commerce in particular.

With information provided by e-commerce platforms, tax management for businesses operating on these platforms has become more efficient. So why require e-commerce platform owners to declare and pay taxes on behalf of the businesses operating on their platforms?

For e-commerce business models conducted through platforms, current regulations only stipulate that domestic platforms are responsible for providing information on organizations and individuals doing business through their platforms to the tax authorities. Individuals doing business on e-commerce platforms are still required to declare and pay taxes directly to the tax authorities, just like traditional commercial and service businesses, as there are no specific regulations for this.

The requirement for hundreds of thousands of online businesses to file and pay taxes in person clearly consumes a significant amount of time, effort, and cost for both online businesses and tax authorities. Furthermore, many online sellers lack knowledge and experience in accounting, invoicing, and documentation, making tax filing difficult. Some even have to pay for accounting and tax services, and in many cases, unintentionally incur tax arrears, resulting in substantial late payment penalties.

To facilitate individual businesses operating on e-commerce platforms, the Ministry of Finance proposes that, when amending certain articles of the Law on Tax Administration, regulations be added regarding cases of tax declaration and payment on behalf of household businesses and individual businesses engaged in e-commerce activities, as well as direct tax declaration for household businesses and individual businesses engaged in e-commerce activities. This aims to reform administrative procedures, centralize tax declaration, and ensure tax declaration and payment are appropriate to the specific characteristics of e-commerce business activities.

Requiring e-commerce platform owners to file and pay taxes on behalf of businesses clearly reduces costs, time, and effort for online sellers and tax authorities, but does this shift the burden onto the e-commerce platforms themselves?

Although the Tax Administration Law does not mandate that e-commerce platforms must file and pay taxes on behalf of online businesses, Circular 40/2021/TT-BTC encourages this practice to facilitate online businesses. It stipulates that organizations, including owners of e-commerce platforms, may file and pay taxes on behalf of individuals based on authorization as prescribed by civil law. E-commerce platform owners will carry out this tax filing and payment on behalf of individuals according to the tax authority's roadmap.

Until the tax filing and payment services for individuals and organizations are implemented, those owning e-commerce platforms are responsible for providing information related to the business activities of individuals conducted through the platform as requested by the tax authorities, in accordance with the law.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/khai-thue-nop-thue-thay-khong-tao-ganh-nang-cho-chu-san-thuong-mai-dien-tu-d226514.html