“A Relief for Small Businesses: The Truth About Electronic Invoice Costs”

At the online talk show on the topic of “Changes in Tax Calculation, What Should Business Households Do?” held by NLD Online Newspaper on June 12, a series of questions related to taxes and e-invoices were raised by small traders and business households, such as: Is it a violation to limit trading to avoid inspection, and to switch to cash payment instead of transfer to hide revenue? The long-term impact of the switch to e-invoices.

Many opinions suggested that the state needs to have more supportive policies to reassure business households to comply with tax regulations and boldly switch to the business model. In addition, they also wondered about the technical requirements for issuing invoices, such as whether it is necessary to equip a cash register or just a smartphone or a computer integrated with invoice software is enough?

Answering the above questions, Mr. Nguyen Hoa Bac, Head of Business Household Management, Individuals and Other Taxes – District II Ho Chi Minh City Tax Department, said: Currently, there are still many business households who do not fully understand the new tax regulations, leading to incorrect reactions, even causing harm to themselves. The reality shows that some shops have closed or operated in moderation to avoid inspection, while many places only accept cash payments and refuse to transfer – which goes against the policy of non-cash payments and reduces competitiveness.

Mr. Bac warned about the situation that some establishments use e-invoices issued from cash registers but do not invoice customers, which is a violation of the law. According to Decree 125/2020/ND-CP, the act of making invoices with incorrect time can be fined from 4 to 8 million VND; if there are signs of tax evasion, the fine can be up to 1 to 3 times the amount of tax evaded. In case of tax evasion of VND 100 million or more, the violator may be criminally handled according to Article 200 of the 2015 Penal Code (amended and supplemented in 2017).

Regarding the information spreading on social networks that each e-invoice must pay VND 500 – 1,000, Mr. Bac affirmed that this is false information. The tax agency has worked with solution providers and agreed on a price of only VND 50/invoice to reduce costs for business households.

Regarding the current tax policy, Mr. Nguyen Hoa Bac said that the business households that are operating under the household contract still follow Circular 40, which regulates value-added tax, personal income tax, and tax administration for business individuals. Every year, business households will submit a tax declaration to the tax agency, on that basis, the tax agency will coordinate with the local government and the advisory council to determine the monthly revenue and tax contract.

In case the tax agency has evidence that the actual revenue increases by more than 50%, the tax contract will be adjusted in the next term. He also refuted some information on social media that taxes will be calculated by multiplying the revenue from the cash register by the tax rate table. This is inaccurate.

Notably, according to the roadmap, from January 1, 2026, all business households will no longer apply the contract tax, but must switch to the tax declaration or business registration form. With the remaining time of only about 6-7 months, the preparation for the transformation is very urgent. In Ho Chi Minh City alone, there are currently about 230,000 contract households being managed. Therefore, this large-scale transformation requires close coordination between the tax agency and technology units, media agencies to support and guide specific to the people.

The tax agency affirms that it will not wait until the fourth quarter of 2025 to implement but will take action from now on. Support programs will be implemented through direct conferences, meetings at markets, residential groups, and online forms via Facebook, YouTube so that business households can easily access the latest information.

In terms of technique, the representative of the Tax Department said that cash registers are no longer limited to traditional hardware devices. An application on a phone, a POS machine, or a sales system integrated on a website is also considered a cash register if it has the function of recording and storing transactions. When using a cash register, business households are required to issue e-invoices. The implementation is very simple, just integrate the software from the appropriate solution provider.

To encourage the transformation process, the tax agency has coordinated with software providers to implement a policy to support free use of e-invoices and cash registers for 6-12 months, creating favorable conditions for business households to gradually participate in the digital transformation process effectively and in the right direction.