The Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications on Tuesday accused foreign streaming companies such as Netflix Inc and Apple Inc of skirting their tax responsibilities, saying it creates unfair competition for domestic firms.
Foreign streaming firms, which have combined revenues of nearly 1 trillion dong (US$43.15 million) from 1 million subscribers, have never paid tax in Vietnam, the ministry said.
“Domestic companies have to abide by tax and content regulations while foreign firms do not, which is unfair competition,” Vietnamese Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung told a government meeting.
“Some content on Netflix has flouted regulations related to the history and sovereignty of the country, violence, drug use and sex,” he added.
Vietnam introduced a cybersecurity law two years ago that requires all foreign businesses earning income from online activities in Vietnam to store their data in the country.
Netflix said it had no plans to place its servers locally or open an office in Vietnam at the moment.
The company said in a statement that it would continue to engage with the government on potential regulations on video on-demand services accessible in Vietnam.
“We are supportive of the implementation of a mechanism that will make it possible for foreign service providers like Netflix to collect and remit taxes in Vietnam,” a Netflix spokesperson said in the statement.
“However today such a mechanism does not exist,” it said.
Netflix was told to remove Full Metal Jacket, a Vietnam War film from its service in the country.
Hung said that the information ministry, finance ministry and tax department were working to facilitate tax collection by calculating foreign streaming companies’ revenues in Vietnam since their entry into the market.
Tech giants are increasingly facing tougher fiscal regimes in Southeast Asia, where regulators held talks last year on a regional push to tax them more.
The Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia have recently passed or drafted legislation aiming to ensure taxes are paid.
MARKET GAP: If China stops buying chips from US firm Micron, they might turn to competitors such as Nanya and South Korean suppliers, researchers said Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) shares rallied nearly 4 percent during early trading yesterday amid optimism that the nation’s biggest DRAM chipmaker would benefit from China’s latest ban on purchasing memory chips from Micron Technology Inc. The restrictions are widely considered a result of an escalating technology dispute between the US and China. Chinese firms might shift orders to non-US suppliers such as Nanya Technology and South Korean memory chipmakers Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The Cyberspace Administration of China on Sunday night said that its review found that Micron’s memory chips pose serious network security risks to the country’s critical
SECURITY RISK: Chinese companies could respond to the announcement by moving away from all products made by the US firm, diverting business toward Korean rivals China delivered the latest salvo in an escalating semiconductor war with the US, announcing that Micron Technology Inc products have failed to pass a cybersecurity review in the country. Operators of key infrastructure in China should not buy the company’s goods, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement on Sunday, adding that it found “relatively serious” cybersecurity risks in Micron products sold in China. The components caused “significant security risks to our critical information infrastructure supply chain,” which would affect national security, it said. The results come more than a month after China announced an investigation on imports from
STATE SUBSIDIES: The talks over a factory in Dresden have a top end on par with what Japan is offering TSMC and outdo a cap other firms are being offered in Europe Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, is in talks to receive German government subsidies for as much as 50 percent of the costs to build a new semiconductor fab in the country, people familiar with the matter said. The government is in ongoing negotiations with TSMC, as well as its partners on the project — Bosch Ltd, NXP Semiconductors NV and Infineon Technologies AG — the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private. No final decisions have been made and the final subsidy amount could still change. Any state aid must also
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) senior vice president of business development Kevin Zhang (張曉強) told reporters yesterday that talks over a possible plant in Germany are continuing and that the earliest decision would be in August. “I don’t want to get into the politics side of the thing, but I do think that there is a need for us to provide our customers with a diverse supply,” Zhang said, adding that Europe is a “very significant geography given the customer base ... [and] the demand.” Zhang did not confirm the size of subsidy or cost of the potential project or
RSS