Tightening tax management for households and individuals doing business: A series of new proposals

(Dan Tri) - A series of new proposals have been made to manage and tighten tax collection such as monitoring and managing taxes for online sellers, business households that must use separate bank accounts...

In the summary of comments on the policy dossier of the Tax Administration Law Project (replacement), the Ministry of Finance noted a series of proposals to tighten tax management for business households and individuals.

Tighten tax management for online sellers

Commenting on the above draft law, the Government Inspectorate suggested that the Ministry of Finance consider researching and supplementing mechanisms for managing, monitoring and inspecting tax declaration and payment activities of organizations and individuals conducting business activities on e-commerce platforms or social networks.

According to the Government Inspectorate, currently, many individuals and organizations doing business on e-commerce platforms and social networks do not register tax codes (of service providers such as Google, Facebook, Youtube, Zalo, etc.). Meanwhile, there are no regulations to control payments, leading to tax losses for the above types of businesses.

According to the Ministry of Finance, Law No. 56/2024 stipulates that foreign suppliers are obliged to directly or authorize tax registration, tax declaration, and tax payment in Vietnam according to regulations of the Minister of Finance.

For households and individuals conducting business activities on e-commerce platforms, digital platforms, organizations that are e-commerce trading floor managers, digital platform managers with payment functions (both domestic and foreign organizations) and organizations with other digital economic activities according to Government regulations shall deduct, pay taxes on behalf of, and declare the deducted tax amount for business households and business individuals.

In case households and individuals have business activities on e-commerce platforms or digital platforms that are not eligible for deduction or tax payment, they are obliged to directly register for tax, declare tax, and pay tax.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade is drafting the Law on E-commerce. The Ministry of Finance has provided comments and proposed to add requirements for information provision of entities, sellers, intermediary e-commerce platforms, logistics service providers, and payment service providers.

Proposal to include regulations requiring e-commerce business entities to make payments through a payment gateway specifically for cross-border e-commerce activities.

According to the Ministry of Finance, these regulations will overcome tax losses because information on cross-border e-commerce payment transactions can be controlled.

Proposal to supplement tax management mechanism for online business (Photo: Tien Tuan).

Proposal for business households to use separate bank accounts

Commenting on the policy documents of the Tax Administration Law (replacement), the Hanoi People's Committee proposed to add a regulation requiring business households to register a bank account or electronic transaction account specifically for business activities. Applying the rule of creating a separate transaction account for business activities is said to help control cash flow more conveniently.

The Hanoi People's Committee also proposed to add regulations on connecting business registration and tax registration for business households, similar to enterprise registration, reducing administrative procedures for taxpayers.

Before the roadmap to abolish lump-sum tax from the beginning of next year, the City People's Committee also proposed that the Ministry of Finance supplement regulations on tax declaration, declaration frequency, and simple declaration forms for business households to easily implement.

Business households switch from lump-sum tax to declaration: 3-phase implementation roadmap

The Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences believes that eliminating lump-sum tax on business households and individuals from next year is necessary. However, the impact assessment report shows that the initial implementation phase (2025-2026) could overload the system due to the conversion of millions of business households.

Business households switch from lump-sum tax to declaration from next year (Photo: Manh Quan).

The cost of compliance with the new regulations can range from several hundred thousand to tens of millions of VND per year, posing an urgent need for technical and financial support policies. The current draft does not mention solutions to overcome this difficulty.

The Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences proposes to develop a roadmap for implementation in 3 phases.

Phase 1 (years 1-2) focuses on piloting, providing free accounting and electronic invoice software, and training in bookkeeping.

Phase 2 (years 2-4) expands mandatory application to households with high revenue, with tax incentives and support for hiring accountants.

Phase 3 (years 4-5) completely ends lump-sum tax, integrates business households into the national tax system, and provides financial support, training, and social insurance for households that have officially converted.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/kinh-doanh/siet-chat-quan-ly-thue-ho-ca-nhan-kinh-doanh-hang-loat-de-xuat-moi-20250718155537326.htm