Taxes in an e-commerce generation

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Taxes in an E-Commerce Generation Terms of use: Documents in AbstractRapid growth in e-commerce has altered the ability of jurisdictions to enforce commodity taxes on a destination basis. This results in different effective tax rates depending on the way in which goods and services are purchased and the characteristics of both the products and the sellers. We discuss the arguments for the destination principle as the appropriate place-of-taxation rule for consumption taxation of cross-border trade. We analyze various recent reforms to the Value Added Tax in the European Union in response to e-commerce. We then examine various policy options in the United States -maintaining the status quo, changing nexus rules, states adopting information reporting, and national reforms that require firms to remit taxes regardless of physical presence -and relate them to the recent European reforms. We conclude based on our analysis and the recent European Union experience that reforms at the national level appear to be the important next step to enforcing commodity taxes at destination in the U.S.JEL-Codes: H200, H700, L810, R500.

The Impact of the Amazon Tax on Local Sales Tax Revenue in Urban and Rural Jurisdictions

“…The importance of e‐commerce has grown exponentially. Agrawal and Fox () estimate that online sales increased from approximately $1 trillion in 2000 to more than $5 trillion in 2013. According to the most recent estimates, e‐commerce makes up 8.4 percent of retail sales in the United States.…”

“…In Tennessee, Amazon sent customers the dollar amount of their purchases and informed them that use taxes may be owed to the state. Twenty‐five states have tried to encourage consumers to remit use taxes by incorporating use tax payment into the state income tax process (Agrawal and Fox ). However, evidence reveals that use taxes are still highly evaded (Manzi ).…”

“…In fact, the majority of sales taxes owed to state and local governments are remitted. This is in part because businesses are more likely to remit use taxes than individual consumers, and they make approximately 87 percent of e‐commerce purchases (Whitacre ; Agrawal ; Agrawal and Fox ).…”

An architectural perspective on service adoption: A platform design and the case of pluggable cross-border trade compliance in e-commerce

“…Furthermore, from a retailer perspective, the correct application of tax regulations often depends not only on a single transaction, but also on the total value of goods sold to a specific country within the fiscal period (Agrawal and Fox 2016). Thus, the service must keep track of all cross-border transactions per country, and apply the correct regulations.…”

Taxation in digital media markets

“…Issues of tax enforcement that exist with digital sales or, more generally, with e‐commerce are discussed in, e.g., Agrawal and Fox () and remain unaddressed in this paper. See also Foros, Kind, and Shaffer () for a broader discussion of provision of digital goods.…”