Stricter tax collection vital for Vietnam's e-commerce: IDEA

Instances of tax evasion in the country have been found to be numerous and at a recurrent rate, which necessitates more effective tax collection management to prevent losses for Vietnam’s growing e-commerce sector, economic experts were quoted as saying by Vietnamese media reports.

“The growth rate of Vietnam’s e-commerce was forecast to reach about 17-20 per cent this year, bringing retail e-commerce revenue to over $16 billion, which is expected to account for about 7.5 per cent of sales of consumer goods and services nationwide,” said Lai Viet Anh, IDEA’s deputy director. The IDEA comes under Vietnam’s ministry of industry and trade.

What makes e-commerce different from other sectors is the lack of paper-based transactions. Moreover, some of the goods exchanged in these transactions are intangible in nature, for example digital products. “Transactions in e-commerce are often difficult to control, manage, monitor, and access information on,” added Anh.

“Tax policy for e-commerce should aim to be simple, easy to implement, and reduce compliance costs for businesses, on the one hand, and not become a barrier to the development of the digital economy in general and e-commerce in particular, on the other hand, while still ensuring correct and sufficient tax collection for the state budget,” said a representative of Vietnam’s National Institute for Finance.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (NB)