VietNamNet Bridge – HCM City Tax Department has collected an addition of over VND1.3 billion of personal income taxes from five well-known artists.

Singer My Tam.

Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted Ms. Le Thi Thu Huong, Deputy Director of the HCM City Tax Department, as saying that these artists had previously declared their taxable income but the report was not completed so the tax body asked them to do it again.

Of the five artists, four are famous singers and one is an overseas Vietnamese comedian. Leading the list is a famous male singer who is the judge of many popular game shows. He had to pay an addition of VND683 million ($34,000) of personal income tax for the three years of 2010-2012.

Next on the list is a female singer with VND264 million of tax arrears. Earlier, this singer declared the tax of VND990 million but based on data collected from show organizers, the total tax that she has to pay is VND1.254 billion.

Ms. Huong said, to have the grounds for tax arrears from these artists, the agency had to seek data from various sources such as the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Department of Trade and Industry, the police...

"The data is not completely accurate because the tax authorities cannot know thoroughly about the artist's performance schedule because sometimes they did not sign contracts and they performed based on oral agreements," Huong said.

According to some sources, pop stars like My Tam, Dam Vinh Hung, Ho Ngoc Ha, Thu Minh... are paid around VND100 million ($5,000) per show. The prices are from VND10 to VND60 million/show for young singers who emerged from TV shows like Uyen Linh, Van Mai Huong, Huong Tram, Anh Tuan Bui...

Particularly, several overseas artists as Bang Kieu, Quang Le, Che Linh... could earn tens of thousands of USD per show.

After Da Nang authorities rejected singer My Tam from a music show of the international firework festival in April, reasoning that the singer claimed up to VND60 million for two songs, the HCM City Tax Department has recently checked tax records of many "stars" in the three years, 2009 to 2011. In this list, though many singers were paid several thousand dollars for a song but they paid less tax than normal workers.

Mr. Nguyen Thai Son, former head of the personal income tax division of HCM City Tax Department, proposed to make public the names of celebrities who commit tax evasion on the media.

After this proposal was made, tens of artists have voluntarily contacted the HCM City Tax Department to perform their tax duty.

P. Linh