In the current context, our state management agencies do not have a separate mechanism for managing imported and exported goods transacted through e-commerce. It leads to many legal obstacles in the control of imported and exported goods through e-commerce transactions. Therefore, on September 18th, 2021, the Draft Decree on managing export and import goods transacted through e-commerce (hereinafter referred to as the “Draft“) was issued to create a legal corridor for firmer management import-export activities. Some notable points of the Draft can be mentioned as follows:
a. Additional regulated subjects
The Draft adds the subjects who are the owners of e-commerce trading floors, e-commerce websites for sales. Accordingly, if the Draft is approved, the major e-commerce exchanges in Vietnam can be mentioned, such as Shopee, Tiki and Lazada will be subject to regulation on export and import transactions via e-commerce.
b. New tax regulations
Each organization or individual purchasing goods is only entitled to tax exemption for imported goods specified at points a and b below, with no more than 1 order/day and no more than 4 orders/month:
- Imported goods with a customs value of 1,000,000 VND or less for each order;
- Imported goods have a customs value of over 1,000,000 VND per order but the total amount of import tax payable is less than 100,000 VND.
If imported goods transacted via e-commerce have a customs value of more than 1,000,000 Vietnam dong per order, and the total payable import tax amount is over 100,000 Vietnam dong, they must pay import tax for the entire value of imported goods.
Stimutenously, to limit the abuse of tax incentives for goods sent via express delivery and postal services as prescribed in Decree No. 18/2021/ND-CP, as well as to synchronize policies with tax incentives between goods sent via courier and postal services and goods transacted via e-commerce, the Ministry of Finance has proposed a quota of import tax exemption for goods shipped via postal services must be applied according to the norms for imported goods transacted via e-commerce as proposed above.
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