Foreign service providers pay Vietnam $614 mln via electronic portal

Foreign service providers like Google, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, TikTok, Netflix and Apple have paid Vietnam VND15.6 trillion ($613.8 million) in accumulated taxes since March 2022 - when the electronic portal for them was launched.

Of this more than VND4 trillion ($157.4 million) was paid this year (to May 15), according to the General Department of Taxation (GDT).

In a bid to prevent tax losses from foreign operators of digital platforms, especially those without representative offices in Vietnam, the GDT launched the electronic portal (https://etaxvn.gdt.gov.vn) in March 2022, enabling them to declare and pay taxes.

As of May 15, 96 foreign service suppliers had registered to pay taxes through the portal, two higher than the previous month.

Last year, 74 foreign service suppliers paid VND8.1 trillion ($318.73 million) in taxes, including VND6.9 trillion directly through the portal.

The tax authority said that it will soon review the list of foreign service suppliers that have not registered, declared and paid taxes using the portal.

At the same time, it will continue to coordinate with relevant units efforts to complete upgrading the portal for foreign service suppliers to ensure convenience during the implementation process.

Based on analysis of foreign service suppliers’ data, compliance risk management will be applied to these organizations, the tax agency said.

To date, the tax sector has recorded over 663,000 connections on the population database of the Ministry of Public Security. It has also shared information with the Ministry of Industry and Trade about 929 e-commerce platforms and collated data on 361 platforms.

In 2023, revenue from e-commerce channels exceeded VND3,500 trillion ($146 billion), with tax payments totalling VND97 trillion ($3.82 billion), an increase of 14% year-on-year. In the first five months of this year, the figure topped VND50 trillion ($1.97 million).

According to the Ministry of Finance, there are now about 144 million payment accounts in Vietnam, an increase of more than 20 million from the end of April. These include 10 million institutional accounts and 134 million individual accounts at 96 banks.