Taxation and electronic commerce

Transactions conducted using the Internet have expanded dramatically in the past few years and countries and their governments have become concerned about the consequences that electronic commerce may have on their tax revenues. Because of this many organisations and inter-governmental agencies have met to try to design a solution that will be compatible with the systems of the various countries and achieve tax neutrality. A number of proposals were made and discussed to try to design a fair and efficient e-tax system. The proposed system that is ultimately adopted must consider different tax bases and systems in order to achieve this. In this research the impact of e-commerce on the imposition of income tax was briefly referred to and four different proposals for levying value-added tax or sales tax were analysed in order to compare the advantages and disadvantages of each and to determine which system would most adequately address the needs of e-commerce. Certain modifications and additions to the proposed systems have been suggested in order to satisfy the specific needs of the South African tax system, while still taking other countries’ tax systems into account. Using Amazon.com Inc. and Skype Technologies South Africa Limited as examples, it is demonstrated how the new amended system will work. It was found that the proposed systems and the system adapted to meet the South African needs would, with a few relatively minor changes to the Value-Added Tax legislation, be suitable for the purposes of imposing value-added tax on e-commerce transactions