Earning VND2 billion via Facebook, millionaires still can evade tax

There is no agency in Vietnam which calculates the number of people doing business via Facebook. However, Tri Thuc Tre quoted a Japanese newspaper as reporting that about 300,000 are selling goods via Facebook. The activity is allowed in Vietnam but it is not common in other countries.

According to Japan’s Cereja Technology, there are 32 million Facebook users in Vietnam, or 35.7 percent of the population, double the 19 percent in Japan.

While Vietnamese are still not making many purchases online, they do not hesitate to buy goods via Facebook.

Unofficial sources said some Facebookers can create fanpages on which sales could be as high as those on an e-commerce website.

According to Nielsen Vietnam, in 2016, the total trading value in the e-commerce market reached $4 billion. With the e-commerce growth rate of 30-50 percent per annum, the figure may climb to $10 billion in the next five years.

Mai Thu Huong, a seller on Facebook, said she takes 10 orders on children’s products each day from Facebook with record sales of up to VND300 million. Huong admitted that she doesn’t have to pay any dong for the business.

Sales via Facebook are now the major source of income of Huong, though she is now an office worker for an ad agent.

She said she is very satisfied with the business because she can earn big money, and she can avoid control from state management agencies.

Meanwhile, Huynh Kim Tuoc of Facebook Vietnam said there are about 50 young dollar millionaires who earn money from the business via internet. He said he knows a man who earns $100,000 a month on average.

The problem is that the millionaires and those who do business on Facebook don’t pay taxes to the state.

Nguyen Huu Tuan from the E-commerce & Information Technology Agency said under current laws, all businesspeople, institutional and individual, who have taxable income must declare their income and pay tax.

“Selling via Facebook is a sales channel and no matter where you sell goods, you have to pay tax,” he said

However, he said it was very difficult to collect personal income tax on those who do business on internet.