Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (MPTC) and General Department of Taxation (GDT) said it is going to collect tax on digital ads by foreign tech companies which are not registered in Cambodia.

The announcement came out after the meeting on Thursday between Minister of Post and Telecommunications Chea Vandeth and Kong Vibol, director General of General Department of Taxation. Both parties discused the 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, said Vandeth. He praised GDT for their achievements through the commitments and responsibilities of the leadership and officials.

“Cambodia and other countries continue to adopt digital technologies to improve work efficiency,” Vandeth emphasized, adding that the importance of critical information infrastructure (CII) protection is a means to safeguard internet traffic and provide additional cybersecurity for GDT’s existing IT infrastructure.

Kong Vibol has appreciated the 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.

Mr Vibol also 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.

Both MPTC and GDT plan to implement bilateral information exchange, share telecoms operators’ revenue data from the Data Management Center (DMC), and to provide technical supports in enforcing tax obligations using the upcoming National Internet Gateway (NIG).

Both parties will jointly draft regulations and build technical capability to tax digital advertisements and services.