MPTC Cooperates with GDT to Collect Tax on Digital Ads by Foreign Tech Companies Not Registered in Cambodia

Phnom Penh, 04 November 2020, Minister of Post and Telecommunications Vandeth Chea met with H.E. Vibol Kong, delegate of the Royal Government of Cambodia in-charge as Director General of General Department of Taxation, to discuss measures to collect tax on digital services provided by major tech companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Alibaba, Facebook and Google, despite gaining revenues from Cambodian users and being unregistered in Cambodia. MPTC will further cooperate with GDT and the Ministry of Economy and Finance to ensure prompt tax obligations by digital services providers and telecoms operators.

Minister Chea praised GDT for their achievements through the commitments and responsibilities of the leadership and officials. In this era, as Cambodia and other countries continue to adopt digital technologies to improve work efficiency, minister Chea emphasized the importance of critical information infrastructure (CII) protection as a means to safeguard internet traffic and provide additional cybersecurity for GDT’s existing IT infrastructure.

On this occasion, H.E. Kong commended minister Chea on his achievements at MPTC, particularly the minister’s concrete visions and objectives to develop Cambodia’s IT, telecoms and post sectors, despite having been in charge for only seven months. Moreover, H.E. Kong expressed his support for MPTC’s plan to create a Big Data hub to integrate and share information among government institutions at both the national and subnational levels.

Going forward, MPTC and GDT plan to implement bilateral information exchange, share telecoms operators’ revenue data from the Data Management Center (DMC), provide technical supports in enforcing tax obligations using the upcoming National Internet Gateway (NIG). Lastly, MPTC and GDT will jointly draft regulations and build technical capability to tax digital advertisements and services.