Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The Ministry of Finance has asked digital-basedbusinesses and delivery service companies to provide information aboute-commerce sellers using their platforms and services so they can be taxed.

Tax authorities have repeatedly asked e-commerce businesses to takeresponsibility for the tax registrations, declarations and payments of sellersvia e-commerce and digital platforms.

The ministry is compiling a draft circular to provide detailed instructions forthis regulation which was recently made public for comments.

Ta Thi Phuong Lan, Deputy Director of Tax Administration for Small, Medium andHousehold Business under the General Department of Taxation said under thecircular, taxation authorities would change the management of household andindividual businesses.

Instead of directly working with every household and individual, taxauthorities will collect information about them from e-commerce businesses andsupervise their cash flow of payments via online transactions.

Under the circular, e-commerce businesses must make information declarationsabout their sellers. E-commerce websites such as Tiki, Shopee, Lazada or Sendoand delivery service companies are responsible for providing information aboutsellers for tax authorities. This draft circular does not apply to foreignsuppliers.

The move is expected to help tax authorities to determine the real revenues ofsellers.

E-commerce businesses have said that they were currently studying the circular,so could not give any comment on it yet.

For any individual involved in doing business on social media sites such asFacebook, local tax authorities will collect information from their pages toidentify who they are and then tax the sellers.

Nguyen Thi Cuc, Chairwoman of the Tax Consulting Association, said taxavoidance form digital-based businesses with higher profits and lower coststhan traditional businesses was unfair. The new circular would ensure equalitybetween traditional business and digital-based business, Cuc said.

The draft circular also stipulates the new tax collection method forlarge-scale household businesses.

In the past, all large-scale business households were subject to lump-sum taxpayments. However, the draft circular will require them to pay taxes viaself-declaration based on their accounting books.

Currently, large-scale business households account for about 6-7 percent of thetotal of 2 million business households nationwide.

Tax authorities will also require banks to provide account holders' informationto aid tax collection management./.