Revising regulations on providing information to tax agency of e-commerce trading floors

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The Ministry of Finance has reported to the Prime Minister, which proposes to issue a decree amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 126/2020. Photo: Thuy Linh.

Necessary to amend Decree 126

The Government issued Decree 126/2020/ND-CP dated October 19, 2020 detailing a number of articles of the Law on Tax Administration and Decree 123/2020/ND-CP dated October 19, 2020 stipulating invoices and documents to implement the Law on Tax Administration 38/2019/QH14.

According to the Ministry of Finance, Decree 126 and Decree 123 have created a legal framework for tax and invoice management, especially electronic invoices, creating favorable conditions for people and businesses. Accordingly, the Ministry of Finance issued guiding documents and directed the tax authorities to implement them uniformly. Thus, the state revenue from taxes and fees in 2021 was good, contributing to completing the state financial task in 2021.

Currently, the electronic invoice system is being launched in six cities and provinces under the central government and is projected to be expanded and applied nationwide from July 1, 2022 in accordance with the Law on Tax Administration.

However, the Ministry of Finance said that the implementation of Decree 126 and Decree 123 had some unclear provisions that need to be revised to create a unified and convenient legal basis for the implementation of the taxpayer and the inspection and control of the tax agency.

Therefore, the Ministry of Finance reported to the Prime Minister to issue a decree amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 126.

Responsibility of tax declaration and payment of e-commerce platforms is more specific

The Ministry of Finance has announced consultation on the draft Decree amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 126 and Decree 123.

As for the revised content related to Decree 126, which contains regulations on personal income tax declaration of organizations and individuals that do not incur personal income tax, the Ministry of Finance said, according to the provisions of Clauses 1 and 2, Article 8 of the decree, the salary payer shall be on behalf of authorized individuals to make tax declaration and payment on a monthly or quarterly basis. However, the decree does not clearly stipulate the case that income is paid but tax is not incurred, whether the salary payer must declare tax or not. Therefore, it is necessary to supplement regulations in this case.

In particular, the draft also stipulates the responsibilities of owners of e-commerce trading floors for declaring and paying taxes and providing information to tax authorities.

Accordingly, Decree 85/2021/ND-CP stipulates that the owner of an e-commerce trading floor is responsible for notifying the tax obligations of foreign sellers using the e-commerce trading floors in accordance with Vietnamese law. The authorization of tax declaration and payment is described in Clause 5, Article 7 of Decree 126, but there are no regulations on the responsibility of the owner of the e-commerce trading floor as stipulated in Decree 85/2021.

Therefore, the Ministry of Finance said it necessary to supplement this provision in the Decree on tax administration to be consistent with Decree 85 on e-commerce.

Notably, regarding the responsibility for providing information, Clause 2, Article 27 of Decree 126 stipulates the responsibility of providing information of relevant organizations and individuals. However, for organizations and individuals providing e-commerce services that are owners of e-commerce trading floors, there are still no clear regulations on the content of information to be provided, or the form and frequency of information provision.

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The information provided by the owners of the e-commerce trading floors is important and necessary for tax management for organizations and individuals selling goods and services through e-commerce trading floors. Therefore, to request the owners of an e-commerce trading floor to provide information to the management agency, it is necessary to supplement a regulation on the content of information to be provided, as well as the form and frequency.