Hair washing, haircutting, laundry, pho selling services... do they need to issue electronic invoices generated from the cash register? What is the current process for previously purchased goods without input invoices? Will there be additional tax collection if revenue increases sharply after switching to tax declaration?...
These are the concerns and worries that business households have sent to and were answered by the leaders of the Tax Department and guests who are tax experts at an online exchange organized by Tuoi Tre newspaper on the morning of June 12.
❓ How to deal with goods without invoices?
How to handle goods imported before June 01, 06 but without electronic invoices is the biggest concern of business households. The representative of the Tax Department said that business households and individuals need to ensure the storage of invoices and documents of purchased goods and services according to regulations to provide them to other state management agencies when requested, ensuring the origin and quality of goods.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Cuc, President of the Vietnam Tax Consulting Association, said that according to current regulations, purchased goods must have legal invoices and documents to determine the origin of the products. However, during the transition from lump-sum tax to declaration, there was a situation where households' inventory did not have full legal invoices.
To handle harmoniously and remove difficulties in the transition period, Ms. Cuc proposed to have appropriate solutions. Accordingly, households must review all inventories, eliminate all goods of illegal origin including: counterfeit goods, smuggled goods, stolen goods (if any) from the inventory and process and destroy goods prepared for sale.
“When switching to paying taxes according to declarations, households will pay taxes on actual sales revenue. Therefore, in my opinion, tax authorities should not pursue inventory without sufficient invoices and documents, except for the cases of illegal goods excluded above,” Ms. Cuc proposed.
Not only with inventory without invoices, many businesses are also worried about being charged back taxes from previous years. According to Ms. Cuc, in the case of businesses paying taxes under the lump-sum method, if revenue changes by 50% or more, the tax authority will adjust the lump-sum tax rate according to revenue in the year of conversion. In the case of businesses paying taxes under the declaration method, businesses will determine their own revenue and pay taxes according to the prescribed rate.
The tax authority will inspect and collect additional taxes if there are signs of tax evasion. Starting from June 01, 06, businesses must issue invoices according to new regulations. This will result in cases where the actual revenue from issuing invoices is greater than the revenue declared for tax payment in previous years.
However, according to Ms. Cuc, in order to encourage businesses to voluntarily convert tax declarations to reflect actual revenue, there should be no issue of collecting tax arrears paid in previous years, except in cases of serious violations to evade or commit tax fraud.
Speaking with Tuoi Tre, Ms. Dinh Thi Thuy, Vice Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of Misa Joint Stock Company, also said that the tax sector should report and propose to competent authorities to remove difficulties and support businesses to do business with peace of mind.
"To help businesses feel secure in doing business, in my opinion, the policy should not retroactively apply new revenue levels to periods of implementation under lump-sum tax," Ms. Thuy suggested.
🏢 Becoming a business can deduct expenses and transfer losses for 5 years
Many businesses expressed concern that they have to pay tax on revenue without deducting expenses before calculating tax when electronic invoices have been applied, and the purchasing and selling stages are transparent. Meanwhile, despite high revenue, the actual profits of many businesses are very low. Therefore, many opinions believe that tax policies and mechanisms for businesses need to be amended soon to suit small business activities.
Answering a series of questions on this issue, Ms. Nguyen Thi Cuc said that the tax rate is based on the characteristics of each business sector. For example, the wholesale and retail sectors have a high proportion of purchased cost of goods, so the tax rate is low because it is calculated on the entire purchased cost. Meanwhile, service activities such as accommodation, hair washing, haircuts, massages, etc. are calculated on the collected service fees, so a higher tax rate is applied.
According to Mr. Nguyen Duc Huy - Deputy Head of the Tax Department (Tax Department), wholesale and retail activities of goods have a tax rate of 1.5% (value added tax 1%, personal income tax 0.5%); accommodation, sauna, massage, tailoring, laundry, haircut, shampoo services are subject to a tax rate of 7% (value added tax 1%, personal income tax 0.5%)... Value added tax is paid by consumers. HKD only collects and pays on behalf of customers.
“To overcome the situation of calculating tax on revenue, business households should convert to enterprises to pay value added tax according to the deduction method. Pay corporate income tax according to the revenue method minus expenses including: cost of purchased goods, rental space, labor, electricity, water, marketing costs, store advertising and promotion, employee training costs…”, Ms. Cuc suggested.
In case of business losses, enterprises will not have to pay corporate income tax and can carry forward losses for 5 years. If they make profits, enterprises will be exempted from corporate income tax for small and medium enterprises for 3 years. In addition, according to the draft of the revised Law on Corporate Income Tax, depending on revenue, small and medium enterprises will only pay corporate income tax at the rate of 15-17%.
“Regarding the accounting and invoice regime for micro-enterprises that have converted from HKD to HKD, accounting for small and micro-enterprises will be simpler. The State will provide free digital platforms and accounting software for shared use by small, micro and HKD enterprises. Obviously, the benefits for businesses are very practical,” Ms. Cuc affirmed.
🤔 Who has to issue the invoice?
Sending to Tuoi Tre, representatives of many businesses providing hair washing services, running inter-route buses, selling rice... asked whether they need to apply electronic invoices generated from cash registers and how to issue them? Answering this question, Mr. Mai Son, Deputy Director of the Tax Department, said that according to Decree 70/2025, from June 01, businesses and individuals with revenue of over 06 billion VND/year and providing goods directly to consumers must apply electronic invoices generated from cash registers.
With this level of revenue, these are households with relatively large business scale. According to statistics from the tax industry, the number of subjects subject to application nationwide is 37,000 HKD, accounting for only over 1% of the total number of HKD. HKD paying taxes by declaration method have used electronic invoices generated from cash registers since 2022. This electronic invoice policy has been implemented more than 3 years ago, not new.
Up to now, about 38,000 households nationwide have applied electronic invoices generated from cash registers. Thus, many households are not yet subject to this policy but still have sufficient infrastructure in terms of technology and equipment, so they have applied it. Another important thing is that many households have realized that applying electronic invoices generated from cash registers helps to improve business management.
According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Cuc, small-scale businesses with revenue of VND100 million/year or less in 2025 will be exempt from all types of taxes. From January 01, 01, the tax-free revenue of businesses will increase to VND2026 million/year. "When applying the tax declaration method to businesses with revenue of over VND200 billion/year, the tax rate will be calculated as a percentage of revenue, depending on the industry," Ms. Cuc said.
Article source: Tuoi Tre Online Newspaper
