Foreign big tech firms pay US$160 million in taxes over 5 months

Foreign service providers such as Google, Facebook, and TikTok have paid over VND4 trillion (US$160 million) in taxes during the first five months of the year, data from the General Department of Taxation revealed.

Foreign service providers have paid taxes via the electronic information portal since March 2022. Photo: Hoang Giang/The Hanoi Times

So far, 96 foreign providers have registered for taxes through the electronic information portal, an increase of two from the previous month. The list includes Google, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, TikTok, Netflix, and Apple.

As of May 15, these companies had paid over VND4 trillion ($160 million). Since the launch of the electronic information portal for foreign providers in March 2022, a total of VND15.6 trillion ($650 million) has been collected from these companies.

The tax authorities plan to review foreign providers that have not yet registered, filed returns, or paid taxes through the portal. The agency will also upgrade the system to facilitate tax declaration and payment. Another measure involves the tax authorities working with various ministries to share data to prevent revenue loss and ensure monetary security.

To date, the finance sector has recorded over 663,000 hits to the Ministry of Public Security’s citizen database. They have also shared information with the Ministry of Industry and Trade on 929 e-commerce platforms and have cross-referenced data from 361 platforms.

Regarding the banking sector, the Ministry of Finance has information on 144 million payment accounts, an increase of over 20 million since the end of April. This includes about 10 million organizational accounts and 134 million individual accounts in 96 banks.

It’s common for individuals and organizations to have multiple payment accounts at different banks for convenience.

In 2023, tax revenue from e-commerce was VND3,500 trillion ($146 billion), with VND97 trillion ($4 billion) in taxes paid, a 14% increase from the previous year. In the first five months of this year alone, over VND50 trillion ($2.1 billion) in taxes were collected from this sector.