This paper set forth internationally agreed principles and standards for the value added tax (VAT) treatment of the most common types of international transactions, with a particular focus on trade in services and intangibles. Its aim is to minimise inconsistencies in the application of VAT in a cross-border context with a view to reducing uncertainty and risks of double taxation and unintended non-taxation in international trade. It also includes the recommended principles and mechanisms to address the challenges for the collection of VAT on crossborder sales of digital products that had been identified in the context of the OECD/G20 Project on Base and Erosion and Profit Shifting (the BEPS Project).
Digitization promises to reshape fiscal policy by transforming how governments collect, process, share, and act on information. More and higher-quality information can improve not only policy design for tax and spending, but also systems for their management, including tax administration and compliance, delivery of public services, administration of social programs, public financial management, and more. Countries must chart their own paths to effectively balance the potential benefits against the risks and challenges, including institutional and capacity constraints, privacy concerns, and new avenues for fraud and evasion. Support for this book and the conference on which it is based was provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation “Click Download on the top right corner for your free copy..."
Digitalization in Asia is pervasive, unique, and growing. It stands out by its sheer scale, with internet users far exceeding numbers in other regions. This facilitates e-commerce in markets that are large by international standards, supported by innovative payment systems and featuring major corporate players, including a number of large, home-grown, highly digitalized businesses (tech giants) that rival US multinational enterprises (MNEs) in size. Opportunity for future growth exists, as a significant population share remains unconnected.
This technical note and manual (TNM) addresses the following questions: (1) What are the main challenges in administering the value-added tax on imported digital services and the measures that countries have introduced to address the challenges?; (2) What are the main challenges in administering the value-added tax on low-value imported goods and the measures that countries have introduced to address the challenges? ;and (3) What are the key tasks in implementing the measures for improving the administration of the value-added tax on imported digital services and low-value imported goods?
Digital commerce – the use of computer networks to facilitate transactions involving the production, distribution, sale, and delivery of goods and services – has grown from merely streamlining relations between consumer and business to a much more robust phenomenon embracing efficient business processes within a firm and between firms. Inevitably, the related taxation issues have grown as well. This latest edition of the preeminent text on the taxation of digital transactions revises, updates and expands the book’s coverage. It includes a detailed and up-to-date analysis of income tax and VAT developments regarding digital commerce under the OECD and G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) reforms. It explores the implications of digital commerce for US state sales and use tax regimes resulting from the 2018 US Supreme Court decision in Wayfair. It discusses cross-border tax in the United States while continuing to focus on tax developments throughout the world. Analysing the practical tax consequences of digital commerce from a multijurisdictional perspective, and using examples to illustrate the application of different taxes to digital commerce transactions, the book offers in-depth treatment of such topics as the following: how tax rules governing cross-border digital commerce are increasingly applied to all cross-border activities; how tax rules and institutional processes have evolved to confront challenges posed by digital commerce; how an emerging ‘tax war’ is developing whereby different countries are unilaterally imposing new tax rules on cross-border digital commerce; how technology enhances tax and cross-border tax information exchanges; how technology reduces both compliance and enforcement costs; cross-border consumption tax issues raised by cloud computing; and different approaches to the legal design of VAT place of taxation rules. The authors offer insightful views on the likely development of new approaches to taxing cross-border digital commerce. This edition, while building on the analysis of the relationship between traditional tax laws and the Internet in the first edition and its predecessors, contains a more explicit and systematic consideration of digital commerce issues and the ongoing policy responses to them. Tax professionals and academics everywhere will welcome the important contribution it makes towards the design of cross-border tax rules that are both conceptually sound and practical in application. ‘A tour de force … much larger and richer than its predecessors … a massive contribution to the growing literature on the taxation of e-commerce.’ – Rita de la Feria, British Tax Review ‘Provides important understandings for ongoing policy discussions … I would warmly recommend.’ – P. Rendahl, World Journal of VAT/GST Law
The book describes the difficulties of the current international corporate income tax system. It starts by describing its origins and how changes, such as the development of multinational enterprises and digitalization have created fundamental problems, not foreseen at its inception. These include tax competition—as governments try to attract tax bases through low tax rates or incentives, and profit shifting, as companies avoid tax by reporting profits in jurisdictions with lower tax rates. The book then discusses solutions, including both evolutionary changes to the current system and fundamental reform options. It covers both reform efforts already under way, for example under the Inclusive Framework at the OECD, and potential radical reform ideas developed by academics.
This report provides practical guidance to tax authorities on the design and implementation of a variety of solutions for digital platforms, including e-commerce marketplaces, in the effective and efficient collection of VAT/GST on the digital trade of goods, services and intangibles. In particular, it includes new measures to make digital platforms liable for the VAT/GST on sales made by online traders through these platforms, along with other measures including data sharing and enhanced co-operation between tax authorities and digital platforms.
The policy paper Corporate Taxation in the Global Economy stresses the need to maintain and build on the progress in international cooperation on tax matters that has been achieved in recent years, and in some respects now appears under stress. With special attention to the circumstances of developing countries, the paper identifies and discusses various options currently under discussion for the international tax system to ensure that countries, and in particular low-income countries, can continue to collect corporate tax revenues from multinational activities.
