Bits, Bytes, and Taxes: VAT and the Digital Economy in Canada

Abstract

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Choosing Canada: Canadian Cultural Policy in the Twenty-first Century

“…The rationale offered for the film or video tax credit revolves around the need to maintain an audio-visual industry of a scale that can compete with US and other global production facilities. 15 On sales taxes as they apply to foreign-owned digital businesses, see Wyonch (2017). Regarding income taxes, what constitutes a fair share of taxes to be paid in any given country by a multinational company that books its net income in lower-tax jurisdictions is currently the subject of negotiations under the "Base erosion and profit shifting" initiative at the OECD, which aim to conclude by 2020.…”

“…In that light, it is passing strange that Canadian governments (except in Quebec and Saskatchewan) have exempted Canadians from paying sales taxes on content subscriptions or other services purchased from companies not located in Canada, such as Netflix. This makes no sense from a fiscal policy perspective (Wyonch 2017) or from a cultural policy perspective. Apple's iTunes service started voluntarily charging Canadian sales taxes on purchases from its Canadian customers in January 2019.…”

Strengthening Canadian Television Content: Creation, Discovery and Export in a Digital World

“…It does not make sense to require only some competitors to be subject to such requirements. Accordingly, online distributors should be required to pay HST (see Wyonch 2017).…”