Taxation of electronic commerce – a commentary

Abstract

The advent of e-commerce provides a new way of conducting commercial transactions in today’s global market. However, despite being considered as an important developmental and trade facilitation tool, the rapid growth of e-commerce has fueled a global debate about the nature of taxation regimes to be used to curb the revenue losses at sub-national, national and international levels emanating from its usage without stifling its development. This revenue loss is particularly worrying to governments which rely heavily on tax revenue as a source of funding their fiscal programs. To provide a better understanding of this critical but complex subject, this paper explores the issues related to e-commerce taxation through a review of relevant extant literature. It analyzes the challenges posed by the growth of e-commerce and makes proposals on how e-commerce can be developed with proper tax regulations by articulating key policy recommendations that will aid/inform the establishment of a sound regulatory framework for e-commerce taxation. The study has important policy recommendations which if implemented, would provide tax administrations with an appropriate and effective response to some of the challenges of electronic commerce