Do e-commerce platforms declare and pay taxes on behalf of individual businesses in Vietnam?

Do e-commerce platforms declare and pay taxes on behalf of individual businesses in Vietnam?

According to Clause 1, Article 8 of Circular 40/2021/TT-BTC (amended by Clause 2, Article 1 of Circular 100/2021/TT-BTC), there are regulations regarding tax declaration and payment on behalf of individuals as follows:

Method of Tax Calculation for Organizations and Individuals Declaring and Paying Taxes on Behalf of Individuals

1. Organizations and individuals declare and pay taxes on behalf of individuals in the following cases:

a) Organizations leasing assets from individuals where the lease contract specifies that the lessee is the taxpayer;

b) Organizations in business cooperation with individuals;

c) Organizations paying bonuses, sales achievement support, promotions, trade discounts, cash or non-cash support, compensation for contract breaches, or other compensations to households;

d) Organizations in Vietnam that are partners of foreign digital platform providers (without permanent establishments in Vietnam) making payments for digital content products and services to individuals according to agreements with foreign digital platform providers;

dd) Organizations, including e-commerce platform owners, perform tax declaration and payment on behalf of individuals based on authorization in accordance with civil law;

e) Individuals declaring and paying taxes on behalf of other individuals based on authorized representation in accordance with civil law

...

Thus, e-commerce platforms only declare and pay taxes on behalf of individual businesses on the platform if the individual provides civil authorization for the platform to declare and pay taxes.

Do e-commerce platforms declare and pay taxes on behalf of individual businesses in Vietnam? (Image from the Internet)

How do e-commerce platforms declare and pay taxes on behalf of individual businesses in Vietnam?

According to Clause 2, Article 8 of Circular 40/2021/TT-BTC, the regulations are as follows:

Method of Tax Calculation for Organizations and Individuals Declaring and Paying Taxes on Behalf of Individuals

...

2. Organizations and individuals declaring and paying taxes on behalf of individual businesses according to the guidance in Clause 1 of this Article shall declare and pay taxes as follows:

a) In cases of declaring and paying taxes on behalf of subjects guided at Point a, Clause 1 of this Article, organizations shall declare and pay taxes monthly, quarterly, or on each arising payment period or calendar year as prescribed by tax management law.

b) In cases of declaring and paying taxes on behalf of subjects guided at Points b, c, d, đ of Clause 1 of this Article, organizations shall declare and pay taxes monthly or quarterly as prescribed by tax management law.

c) In cases of declaring and paying taxes on behalf of subjects guided at Point e, Clause 1 of this Article, organizations and individuals shall declare and pay taxes as prescribed by tax management law for authorized individuals.

...

In cases where individual businesses authorize the e-commerce platform, the platform carries out tax declaration and payment on behalf of the individual on a monthly or quarterly basis as prescribed by tax management law.

Vietnam: Does the product price on e-commerce platforms include tax?

According to the regulations in Article 31 of Decree 52/2013/ND-CP concerning price information:

Price Information

1. Information about the price of goods or services, if available, must clearly indicate whether the price includes or does not include relevant expenses related to purchasing the goods or services such as taxes, packaging fees, transport fees, and other incidental costs.

2. Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, if the price information of goods or services listed on the website does not clearly indicate whether it includes or does not include the relevant expenses such as taxes, packaging fees, transport fees, and other incidental costs, this price is understood to include all related costs mentioned above.

3. For services on websites providing e-commerce services as stipulated in Section 2 and 4 of this Chapter, the website must disclose detailed information about the fee calculation method and payment mechanism.

Therefore, according to the above regulations, the selling price on e-commerce platforms must clearly indicate whether it includes taxes. If the price information on the e-commerce platform does not indicate whether it includes taxes, this price is understood to include taxes unless otherwise agreed upon by the parties.