Shopee, Tiki, Lazada to not pay taxes on behalf of sellers

E-commerce platforms like Shopee, Tiki, and Lazada must provide information on seller revenue to tax authorities instead of paying taxes on their behalf as previously proposed.

This regulation is mentioned in newly-issued Decree No. 91 on amendments to a number of articles of Decree No. 126 detailing the Law on Tax Administration, effective from October 30, 2022.

Under the new regulation, the owner of the e-commerce platform is responsible for providing tax authorities with information about partner sellers, including their name; tax code, ID number, address and phone number; and revenue generated through the platform’s online ordering function.

E-commerce platforms must deliver information on a quarterly basis, no later than the last day of the first month of the following quarter via the portal of the General Department of Taxation.

Last year, the Ministry of Finance put forth a plan that all e-commerce platforms must pay taxes on behalf of partner sellers to avoid tax loss. However, this proposal raised enormous controversy among companies and experts.

After receiving feedback, the ministry proposed dividing e-commerce platforms into two types: platforms with online ordering functions and those without. E-commerce platforms have mushroomed in recent years, with about 100 operating platforms and hundreds of thousands of individual sellers.

In 2020, Shopee had about 210,000 individual sellers, while the figure for Tiki exceeded 8,800 and Voso, over 3,210, according to the General Department of Taxation.