The Ministry of Information and Communications proposes to remove online games from the draft excise tax list

Recently, the Ministry of Finance has proposed to develop a draft revised Law on Special Consumption Tax, which proposes to add the type of “online video game service business to the subjects subject to special consumption tax”. at a reasonable tax rate”. Accordingly, the Ministry of Finance ranks online games in the same category with sugary drinks, barley drinks, non-alcoholic beverages, and electronic cigarettes.

In the view of the Ministry of Finance, online games are a form of entertainment with great revenue and high profit compared to other types of businesses, attracting all ages of the population, especially young people to participate. . Therefore, it is necessary to do additional research on the subjects subject to excise tax to orient consumption.

Before this proposal, the Ministry of Information and Communications has officially sent a written request to the Ministry of Finance to remove online games from the list of draft special consumption tax.

According to Mr. Le Quang Tu Do, Director of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information (Department of Information and Communications), Ministry of Information and Communications (TT&TT), the game industry is an industry with good development potential in Vietnam. especially in the context that our country is promoting digital transformation and building the industrial revolution 4.0

“The gaming industry here is not the gaming industry. Many people have such misconceptions and prejudices about this industry. The game industry is an ecosystem of game production, game publishing and game-related activities. In many countries, games are the key smokeless industry in the 4.0 era,” explained Mr. Le Quang Tu Do.

“In Vietnam, the game industry is still very young, the revenue value is still very small, only about 600 million USD. Therefore, Vietnam needs to have policies to support the development of this industry instead of collecting more,” said Mr. Do.

In addition, the game industry is a type of software company, so if tax increases or strict measures are taken, it is easy for game companies to move their operations abroad. After that, these enterprises continued to supply products across borders into Vietnam. Meanwhile, preventing illegal and cross-border games is still very difficult due to the “flat”, borderless nature of the internet.

“The Department of Information and Communications and Information Technology has worked with the Tax Policy Department (Ministry of Finance), coordinated with businesses and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) to organize a conference on this issue, in which the view is very clear. clear. This point of view continues to be reiterated again in the Gameverse 2023 game festival that has just been held,” said Mr. Le Quang Tu Do.

The Director of the Department of Information and Communications affirmed that the Ministry of Information and Communications is very interested in and wants to develop the game industry, including tax incentives for businesses operating in the game industry in Vietnam./.