Vietnamese shop on Facebook, state cannot collect tax

“Australian cherries are coming later this week! Please order now! The price is really good!”, says one ad on Facebook posted by SN, an online trader, who received tens of orders.

SN said she sold a box of Australian cherries within one hour after posting the ad.

“The demand is very high. Housewives like fruits carried across the border gates instead of imported goods shipped by sea because they are fresh and have good prices,” she explained.

SN said she can sell cherries at VND450,000 per kilo, about VND50,000-70,000 per kilo cheaper than the price offered by fruit shops.

Unlike the shops’ owners, she doesn’t have to pay import tax and corporate income tax. Meanwhile, the prices are high enough to bring her good profits.

It is now easy to order fruits, cosmetics, clothes, footwear, and food supplements from overseas on Facebook.

There are numerous online goods suppliers like SN. The promised attractive profits have prompted many people to jump on the bandwagon.

Cam Nhung is a TV reporter in Hanoi, but she said the major source of her income is from the sale of goods on Facebook. Nhung is well known as a distributor of Japanese goods, mostly cosmetics and clothes.

The goods are from different sources. Her sister, who lives in Japan, collects goods during big sale campaigns and sends them to sell in Vietnam. These are goods carried across border gates by stewards or travelers.

Nguyen Duc Tuan, a civil engineer, who works for the Ministry of Transport, also sells goods via Facebook. He trades in functional food, organic dairy products and vegetable oil.

“At first, my wife and I sold goods on our Facebook page. Later, we developed a fanpage on Facebook, accepting to pay VND1.5 million a month to have more advertising tools,” he said.

Tuan recently set up a website with a Vietnamese domain name at a cost of VND10 million, a reasonable price compared with the monthly revenue of VND70 million a month.

While trade via Facebook brings SN, Cam Nhung and Tuan big profits, the State cannot collect tax because the traders do not register their businesses with state agencies.

A tax officer noted that the products traded via Facebook are mostly cosmetics, clothes, functional foods and liquor. They bring high profits because they bear high official import tariffs, and the demand is high.