Daniel Bunn
Elke Asen
Cristina Enache
Digital Taxation
Around the World
Introduction 1
Key Recommendations 5
Consumption Taxes and the Digital Economy 8
Digital Services Taxes 16
Tax Preferences for Digital and Hi-Tech Income 22
Corporate Taxation and the Digital Economy 28
Gross-based Withholding Taxes on Digital Services 39
Conclusion 41
APPENDIX 42
Digital Taxation
Around the World
TAX FOUNDATION | 1
Introduction
The digitalization of the economy has been
a key focus of tax debates in recent years.
Political debates have focused on the
differences between taxing physical business
operations and virtual operations. These
debates have intersected with multiple layers of
tax policy including consumption and corporate
tax policies. Novel policies have also been
developed including equalization levies and
digital services taxes alongside more common
use of gross-based withholding taxes targeted
at digital services.
However, in some cases political expediency has
outpaced consistent policy designs in line with
sound principles of tax policy. As policymakers
continue to evaluate the options to tax digital
businesses it will be necessary to avoid creating
new distortive tax policies driven by political
agendas.
This paper reviews a multitude of digital tax
policies around the world with a focus on OECD
countries and points out the various flaws
and benefits associated with the wide set of
proposals.
What Are Digital Taxes?
The digital economy means many different
things. The same is true for digital taxes. In
this paper, digital taxes include policies that
specifically target businesses which provide
products or services through digital means
using a special tax rate or tax base.
1
These include policies that extend existing
rules to ensure a neutral tax policy toward all
businesses, such as when a country extends
its Value-added Tax to include digital services.
They also include special corporate tax rules
designed to identify when a digital company
1 Though many countries are implementing digital tax policies to improve tax administration, these changes to tax administration are not considered in
this paper.
has a permanent establishment even without a
physical presence.
This paper reviews and analyzes digital taxes
using the following categories:
1. Consumption taxes
Consumption taxes are Value-added Taxes
(VAT) and other taxes on the sale of final goods
or services. Countries have been expanding
their consumption taxes to include digital goods
and services.
2. Digital services taxes
Digital services taxes are gross revenue taxes
with a tax base that includes revenues derived
from a specific set of digital goods or services
or based on the number of digital users within a
country.
3. Tax preferences for digital businesses
Tax preferences are policies such as research
and development (R&D) credits and patent
boxes that reduce the tax burden on digital
businesses. Though most preferences are
available for any business, some specifically
lend themselves to digital business models.
4. Digital permanent establishment rules
These policies include redefining what
constitutes a permanent establishment to
include digital companies that have no physical
presence within a jurisdiction. These virtual
or digital permanent establishments are
usually defined using specific criteria including
engagement with the local market.
2 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
5. Gross-based withholding taxes on digital
services
Gross-based withholding taxes are used by
some countries instead of corporate taxes or
consumption taxes to tax revenue of digital
firms in connection to transactions within
a jurisdiction. As gross income taxes, these
policies do not substitute for income or
consumption taxation.
Principles for Digital Taxation
Just as with other areas of tax policy, it is
important to evaluate digital taxes using
principles of sound tax policy: simplicity,
transparency, neutrality, and stability.
2
Many
digital tax policies fail to adhere to these
principles by design.
Simplicity
Tax codes should be easy for taxpayers to
comply with and for governments to administer
and enforce. Digital tax policies fail the
simplicity test when they leave important
definitions unclear or add unnecessary
compliance challenges for businesses that
are trying to understand how much tax they
owe. This arises in unclear standards for
identifying in-scope business elements for
virtual permanent establishments and digital
services taxes. Though the broad designs of
some digital taxes are conceptually simple,
the complexity arises in the practical details
of identifying relevant users and revenues,
sometimes without clear guidance on how to
do so. Governments will also face challenges
evaluating whether a digital company has paid
the correct amount of tax, especially for digital
tax policies that rely on the location of users.
Transparency
Tax policies should clearly and plainly define
what taxpayers must pay and when they must
2 “Principles,” Tax Foundation, accessed May 18, 2020, https://taxfoundation.org/principles/.
pay it. Disguising tax burdens in complex
structures should be avoided. Digital taxes are
sometimes designed as thinly veiled proxies for
other taxes (either consumption or corporate
taxes) rather than pure extensions of those
existing policies. Additionally, digital services
taxes and gross-based withholding taxes usually
have low statutory rates, but because they
apply to revenues rather than income the tax
burden is effectively much higher than the rate
implies.
Neutrality
The purpose of taxes is to raise needed
revenue, not to favor or punish specific
industries, activities, and products. Some
digital taxes work to create neutrality between
digital business models and other businesses.
Extending consumption taxes to include
digital products and services can result in
neutral treatment of consumption. Expanding
permanent establishment rules to create
equivalent virtual permanent establishments
in line with clear market connections can also
improve neutrality. However, targeted digital
services taxes and preferences for hi-tech
firms create unequal tax treatment based on a
business’s industry or sector.
Stability
Taxpayers deserve consistency and
predictability in the tax code. Governments
should avoid enacting temporary tax laws,
including tax holidays, amnesties, and
retroactive changes. Many digital tax policies
are designed to be temporary, with some
timelines tied to international agreements
on changes. Temporary tax policy creates
uncertainty and challenges for both
administration and compliance. Additionally,
digital taxes often target specific business
activities that are constantly evolving as the
digitalization of the economy continues. Policies
should not be designed to rely on definitions of
TAX FOUNDATION | 3
business activities that are subject to change in
a dynamic economy.
The Digital Tax Debate
The growth of the digital economy in recent
decades has been paired with policy debates
about the taxes that digital companies pay and
where they pay them. Many digital business
models do not require physical presence in
countries where they have sales, reaching
customers through remote sales and service
platforms.
Business models including social media
companies, e-commerce marketplaces, cloud
services, and web-based services platforms
have all motivated targeted tax policies. In some
cases, the policies are extensions of old rules
to new players, while other policies are special
taxes directed specifically at a business or
platform.
3
Consumption tax policies have shifted to
account for the growth of products and services
delivered through digital means, often without
a business having a taxable presence within
the country where the products are consumed.
Additionally, policymakers have examined ways
to change corporate taxes to capture activity of
digital firms in countries.
Preferential tax regimes including shorter
depreciation schedules for intangibles, targeted
R&D tax relief, and patent boxes to a certain
degree have caused digital firms to benefit from
lower taxation. While the arguments behind
these preferences are to spur innovation and
3 In many cases policies become known by the business they are targeting because the policy and political rhetoric is directed at those businesses. For
example, see Angelique Chrisafis, “France Hits Back at US over Tax on Digital Giants,” The Guardian, July 11, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/
world/2019/jul/11/france-us-tax-big-digital-companies-donald-trump-amazon-facebook.
4 Christoph Spengel et al., “Steuerliche Standortattraktivität digitaler Geschäftsmodelle” ZEW, PwC, December 2018, https://www.pwc.de/de/steuern/
pwc-studie-steuerlicher-digitalisierungsindex-2018.pdf.
5 Though the European Commission and many European politicians incorrectly interpret the cause of the tax gap between digital and traditional
businesses, this gap was a key motivation for significant tax proposals for the EU. European Commission, “Fair Taxation of the Digital Economy,”
Taxation and Customs Union - European Commission, Mar. 21, 2018, https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/company-tax/
fair-taxation-digital-economy_en.
6 OECD, “Programme of Work to Develop a Consensus Solution to the Tax Challenges Arising from the Digitalisation of the Economy,” 2019, https://
www.oecd.org/tax/beps/programme-of-work-to-develop-a-consensus-solution-to-the-tax-challenges-arising-from-the-digitalisation-of-the-economy.
pdf.
7 Gary D. Sprague, “A Critical Look at the European Commission Staff Impact Assessment Relating to the Proposed EU Directives on Taxation of the
Digital Economy,” Bloomberg BNA, July 13, 2018.
attract investment in the newest technologies,
the lighter tax burden resulting from the
incentives has created a gap between the
taxation of digital businesses relative to other
sectors.
4
In response to the difference in tax burdens,
policymakers have sought new taxation tools
targeted (in some cases) at the same businesses
that are eligible for the targeted preferences.
5
Because the major digital companies
are multinational businesses, the digital
tax discussion has led to the need for an
international agreement on whether rules need
to change. Without a multilateral agreement,
individual country policies are likely to intersect
or contradict one another, resulting in double
taxation.
6
Whither Value Creation?
Changing international rules on digital taxation
will impact both where and how much tax the
impacted digital businesses pay. International
norms of corporate income taxation rely on
the concept of value creation to decide where
a business pays taxes. In the digital tax debate,
a new angle to the value creation debate has
arisen.
Proponents of digital taxation often argue that
digital value creation should take account of
the value contributed by users of social media
platforms or e-commerce websites because
the data provided by user habits are then
translated into targeted advertisements or
other customized services.
7
4 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Attributing value to a user that accesses a free
service is economically challenging because
there is no price signal connected to the single
user, and treating a network of users as a value-
creating asset comes with similar measurement
and valuation challenges. Although network
effects are prevalent in some digital business
models, such effects are also common
throughout other parts of the economy and do
not give rise to special tax rules.
8
Policies that follow the logic of value created by
users implies that the location of value creation
for tax purposes would necessarily change.
Just as the global population is not evenly
distributed across countries, recent measures
of value created by digital companies are
concentrated in certain jurisdictions.
In 2015, a bit more than one-third of global
internet users were in East and Southeast Asia,
while 20 percent of value created in information
industries originated there. Conversely, just
11 percent of internet users in 2015 resided
in North America while 37 percent of value
created in information industries originated
there.
8 Itai Grinberg, “International Taxation in an Era of Digital Disruption: Analyzing the Current Debate,” SSRN Scholarly Paper Rochester, NY: Social Science
Research Network, Oct. 29, 2018, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3275737.
9 OECD, “Members of the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS,” December 2019, https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/inclusive-framework-on-beps-
composition.pdf.
10 Daniel Bunn, “Chaos to the Left of Me. Chaos to the Right of Me,” Tax Foundation, May 5, 2020, https://taxfoundation.org/
pascal-saint-adams-oecd-digital-tax-negotiation-timeline/.
Multilateralism or Unilateralism?
Because of the mismatch in the current
distribution of internet users and the location of
digital production, changing tax rules to reflect
where users are located would change where
businesses owe and pay taxes. This highlights
the political challenge of rewriting the rules in
ways that impact which countries receive tax
revenue from digital businesses. This is where
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) has stepped in to
manage negotiations among more than 130
countries.
9
The conflicting policies that have arisen
unilaterally—such as digital services taxes—
require multilateral action to avoid a harmful tax
and trade war at the end of 2020.
10
However,
the solutions on the table at the OECD already
violate sound principles of tax policy. As that
work continues, this paper takes stock of
existing digital tax measures and highlights
the strengths and weaknesses of the various
approaches.
TABLE 1.
The Geographic Mismatch Between Users and Digital Value Creation, 2015
Regions
Millions
of Internet
Users Share
Information Industries
(Trade in Value Added in
Millions of U.S. Dollars) Share
North America 343 11% 1,179,632 37%
Europe 508 16% 818,529 26%
East and Southeast Asia 1,080 34% 625,194 20%
South and Central America 206 7% 99,675 3%
Other Regions 997 32% 432,448 14%
World 3,133 100% 3,155,478 100%
Note: Information industries includes publishing, audiovisual, broadcasting activities, telecommunications, IT, and other
information services (industry codes: D58T60, D61, D62T63).
North America includes Canada, Mexico, and the United States; Europe includes Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Russia, the
United Kingdom, and the 27 member countries of the European Union; East and Southeast Asia includes Japan, Korea, Brunei,
China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Chinese Taipei, and Vietnam; Other Regions
include Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Turkey, India, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Tunisia; World includes the
remainder from the rest of the world.
Source: “Number of Internet Users by Country,” Our World in Data, accessed May 22, 2020, https://ourworldindata.org/
grapher/number-of-internet-users-by-country; and OECD, “Trade in Value Added (TiVA): Principal Indicators,” accessed May 22,
2020, https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TIVA_2018_C1.
TAX FOUNDATION | 5
Key Recommendations
The digital tax debate is far from over, and
policymakers should seek to follow sound
principles in developing, refining, and (in some
cases) removing digital tax policies.
In two policy areas, consumption and corporate
income taxes (and associated permanent
establishment rules), countries are working
to extend their existing rules to digital
businesses. This presents an opportunity to
move toward equal treatment of physical
and digital business models, but also real
challenges to align standards and implement
policies on a multilateral basis. Policies in these
areas should meet a high bar for alignment
with other jurisdictions, minimize complexity
and compliance costs, and avoid differential
treatment of targeted business sectors.
In two other policy areas, digital services
taxes and gross-based withholding taxes,
countries are relying on novel, but distortive
and discriminatory, approaches to taxing digital
businesses. These policies have the potential to
lead to an economically harmful tax and trade
war and should be avoided.
Preferences for digitalized businesses should be
focused on innovation rather than creating tax
windfalls. Research & development tax credits
can be improved to avoid compliance challenges
that limit the benefits to businesses that can
afford to comply. However, patent boxes
create tax windfalls that only provide benefits
following innovation and can be used in ways
that distort investment and income patterns.
The following recommendations should be used
to guide design and implementation of policies
meant to address the challenges of taxing digital
business models.
Consumption Taxes
The expansion of consumption taxes to include
digital services and products can achieve a
neutral broadening of the tax base. Because the
purpose of consumption taxes is to tax where
consumption occurs, broadening tax bases
to digital consumption is simply an extension
of that principle. However, differences in
compliance costs, rates, or registration
thresholds can create new distortions or
unnecessarily increase compliance costs.
Countries should pursue:
• A broad consumption tax base that
includes digital services and products and
achieves equal treatment between digital
and physical businesses.
• Alignment with general standards for
collecting data on remote sales and digital
transactions.
• Compliance requirements that are
designed to minimize the costs associated
with building new systems and identifying
the location of a sale or customer.
Countries should avoid:
• Policies targeting digital cross-border
transactions with rates that differ from
those that would apply to similar, local
commerce.
6 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Digital Services Taxes
Digital services taxes should, by and large, be
removed to avoid the distortions that taxes
on revenues create. Absent repeal, countries
should clarify ways that businesses can avoid
being taxed twice on digital income.
Countries should pursue:
• Clear timelines for removal of digital
services taxes to avoid a harmful tax and
trade war.
• Policies that clearly allow for relief from
double taxation.
Countries should avoid:
• Adopting digital services taxes to prevent
the distortions that such revenue-based
taxes create.
Tax Preferences for Digital Businesses
Preferences for digital businesses create an
unlevel playing field and are not in line with the
principle of neutral tax policy. Countries should
consider how their preferences spur innovation
or simply create tax windfalls.
Countries should pursue:
• Neutral treatment of investment in
capital assets using either full expensing
or a neutral cost recovery system to avoid
distorting investment decisions due to
better tax treatment of investment in
intangible assets.
11 Fundamental changes include broad adoption of destination-based cash flow taxes or a fundamental global agreement on allocating taxing rights based
on a set formula. Both would rearrange taxing rights across the globe more significantly than changes directed at digital business models, meaning that
adoption remains unlikely given the political challenges of getting countries to agree to either.
Countries should avoid:
• Research & development tax credits with
high compliance costs which only benefit
firms that can afford to comply.
• Using patent boxes to attract intangible
asset income because the policies lead to
tax windfalls and distort investment and
income patterns.
Digital Permanent Establishment Rules
When developing policies to tax corporate
income of digital businesses, some countries
are adjusting their definitions of permanent
establishments. However, this immediately
creates the potential for double taxation.
While disagreements among countries on the
allocation of taxable corporate income remain,
the challenges associated with some countries
attempting to tax digital business income
without creating double taxation will continue.
Though comprehensive reforms to international
taxation would also address the digitalization
of the economy, it is likely that countries
will remain focused on reforms targeted at
digital business models rather than taking up
the challenge to broadly adopt fundamental
reforms.
11
Outside of a fundamental reform to the
international tax system, countries should
recognize that navigating definitions of digital
permanent establishments comes with risks.
Countries should pursue:
• Multilateral negotiations when developing
new approaches for taxing corporate
income of nonresident businesses.
TAX FOUNDATION | 7
Countries should avoid:
• Rules targeted at specific industries
or sectors that would create unstable
policies in the context of a rapidly
changing and digitalizing economy.
• Unilateral pursuit of digital permanent
establishment regulations that are likely
to result in double taxation and harm
efforts to coordinate policies.
Gross-based Withholding Taxes on
Digital Services
Gross-based withholding taxes on digital
services are a poor proxy for corporate income
taxes and represent a shortcut to taxing
digital companies without considering the
challenges of identifying a virtual permanent
establishment. Policymakers should avoid
relying on gross-based withholding taxes to
tax digital businesses that do not have a local
presence.
Countries should avoid:
• Relying on policies that are neither
efficient nor transparent as rough
substitutes for either consumption or
income taxes.
8 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Consumption Taxes and the
Digital Economy
Consumption tax changes to account for digital
services and goods sold over the internet
are often meant to level the playing field
between international and domestic providers.
Consumption tax policies can remove the
bias in favor of the digital acquisition of goods
and services relative to their local, physical
acquisition. Nevertheless, when broadening the
VAT base to include digital goods and services,
equal treatment in tax rates and compliance
costs needs to be ensured.
The increasing digitalization of the economy
has changed the nature of retail distribution.
Many digital companies engage in remote sales
in countries where they don’t have a physical
presence. Consumption-based taxation of
remote sales or services allows for taxing a
transaction when a seller or service provider
has no local physical presence.
12 UNCTAD, “UNCTAD Estimates of Global E-Commerce 2018,” Apr. 27, 2020, https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/tn_unctad_ict4d15_en.pdf.
The estimated
12
e-commerce sales value,
which includes business-to-business (B2B) and
business-to-consumer (B2C) sales, reached
$25.6 trillion globally in 2018, the equivalent of
30 percent of the global gross domestic product
(GDP).
The value of global B2C e-commerce in 2018
was $4.4 trillion, representing 17 percent of
all e-commerce. Of this, cross-border B2C
e-commerce sales amounted to $404 billion
in 2018, representing an increase of 7 percent
over 2017.
TABLE 2.
E-commerce sales reached $26 trillion in 2018
Country
Total
e-commerce
sales
($ billion)
Share of total
e-commerce sales
in GDP (%)
B2B
e-commerce
sales
($ billion)
Share of B2B
e-commerce
sales in total
e-commerce (%)
B2C
e-commerce
sales
($ billion)
United States 8,640 42 7,542 87 1,098
Japan 3,280 66 3,117 95 163
China 2,304 17 943 41 1,361
Korea 1,364 84 1,263 93 102
United Kingdom 918 32 652 71 266
France 807 29 687 85 121
Germany 722 18 620 86 101
Italy 394 19 362 92 32
Australia 348 24 326 94 21
Spain 333 23 261 78 72
10 above countries 19,110 35 15,772 83 3,338
World 25,648 30 21,258 4,390
Note: Figures in italics are UNCTAD estimates.
Source: UNCTAD, based on national sources.
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The United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) estimates
13
that 1.45
billion people, or one-quarter of the world’s
population aged 15 and older, made purchases
online in 2018. The interest in buying from
foreign suppliers continued to expand. The
share of cross-border online shoppers to all
online shoppers rose from 17 percent (200
million) in 2016 to 23 percent (330 million) in
2018.
As cross-border e-commerce increases,
governments want to charge tax based on the
location of the purchaser of the product or
service. Value-Added Tax (VAT) and Goods and
Services Tax (GST) rules are being amended to
ensure that foreign suppliers—which typically
do not have a local physical presence—become
liable for the collection and remittance of these
taxes. Not having a physical presence in the
country poses a great challenge to the seller
as it needs to deal with disparate and changing
requirements in each of the countries where
13 UNCTAD, “UNCTAD Estimates of Global E-Commerce 2018.”
14 Owing to different methods and assumptions the revenue implications of the Moratorium range between $280 million and $8.2 billion, underscoring
wide disagreement on measurement. See Andrea Andrenelli and Javier López González, “Electronic transmissions and international trade – shedding
new light on the moratorium debate,” OECD, Nov. 13, 2019, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/57b50a4b-en.
15 Emma Farge, “WTO ban on tariffs for digital trade extended until June 2020,” Reuters, Dec. 10, 2019.
16 Andrenelli and López González, “Electronic transmissions and international trade – shedding new light on the moratorium debate.”
it has sales. This presents unique bookkeeping
requirements, as well as having to deal with
paperwork or online forms in the language of
that country. This can be both a time-consuming
and resource-intensive process for businesses.
Additionally, since 1998, members of the
World Trade Organization (WTO) have agreed
not to impose customs duties on electronic
transmissions. The moratorium of customs
on digital trade, worth an estimated $354
million,
14
was due to expire in December 2019
but was extended, for now, until June 2020.
15
E-commerce could be at risk if countries decide
not to renew the moratorium and instead
opt to place tariffs on e-commerce alongside
consumption and digital taxation measures.
This will impose a great risk not only on the
digital economy but also on economies more
broadly. The Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development (OECD) found
16
that the relative fiscal benefits of lifting
TABLE 3.
Cross-border B2C e-commerce sales reached $404 billion in 2018
Rank Country
Cross-border
B2C e-commerce sales
($ billion)
Share of cross-border
B2C e-commerce sales in
merchandise exports (%)
Share of crossborder
B2C sales in total B2C
e-commerce sales (%)
1 China 100 4.0 7.3
2 United States 85 5.1 7.8
3 United Kingdom 40 8.2 15.0
4 Hong Kong, China 35 6.2 94.3
5 Japan 21 2.9 13.1
6 Germany 15 1.0 14.9
7 France 12 2.0 10.6
8 Italy 4 0.8 13.9
9 Korea 3 0.5 3.2
10 Netherlands 1 0.2 4.4
Ten above 317 3.2 9.6
World 404 2.1
Source: UNCTAD estimates based on national sources.
10 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
the moratorium would be small and vastly
outweighed by the disruption to gains in
consumer welfare and export competitiveness.
Remote Sales
For VAT purposes, goods are referred to as
“tangible property.” The VAT treatment of
supplies of goods depends on the location of
the goods at the time of the transaction or as
a result of the transaction. When a transaction
involves goods being moved from one
jurisdiction to another, the exported goods are
generally free of VAT in the seller’s jurisdiction,
while the imports are subject to domestic VAT
in the buyer’s jurisdiction.
Remote Services
When services are considered, the VAT
legislation in many countries tends to define
a “service” as “anything that is not otherwise
defined,” or a “supply of services” as anything
other than a “supply of goods.” While this
generally also includes intangibles, some
jurisdictions regard intangibles as a separate
category. To identify the place of taxation
of service for VAT purposes, a wide range of
proxies can be used, including the place of
performance of the service, the location of
the supplier, the location of the customer, or
the location of the tangible property related
to the service. The OECD’s International VAT/
GST Guidelines
17
recommend that the place
of taxation is the location of the customer,
especially for B2B supplies of services. In
this way, it avoids the need for cross-border
refunds of VAT to businesses that have acquired
services abroad.
17 OECD, “International VAT/GST Guidelines,” Apr. 12, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264271401-en.
18 See Table 3.
What OECD Countries Are Doing
Most of the countries in the OECD have
implemented or considered implementing VAT
or GST on a broad number of digital products
and services. Nevertheless, some countries
have excluded certain types of products or
services like e-books, live broadcasts, online
courses, etc., or decided to apply a lower tax
rate for certain categories.
In general, B2B transactions apply a “reverse
charge” mechanism, where the recipient, not
the seller, deals with the tax. The problem arises
when transactions are B2C. Many countries are
requesting sellers with no physical presence in
the buyer’s country to register for VAT purposes
if their annual sales in the country exceed a
certain threshold. The threshold ranges from
$5,681 in Norway to $100,604 in Switzerland,
while countries like Mexico, South Korea, or
Turkey have no minimum threshold.
18
Also, in order to determine customer location,
some countries are requiring businesses to
collect information on billing address, IP address
of the device used in the transaction, bank
details, or country code of phone number.
Finally, once registered, businesses will be
expected to file VAT returns. In countries like
Turkey or Mexico, providers are expected to
report monthly on VAT collected.
TAX FOUNDATION | 11
TABLE 4.
Cross-Border Consumption Taxes on Digital Goods and Services in OECD Countries
Jurisdiction
VAT/GST
Rate Description
Excluded
Goods and
Services
Threshold
for VAT
Registration
Current
Status
Australia 10% 10% GST on sales of digital goods and
services to consumers by nonresident
e-commerce companies; since July 2018
low-value goods and services (under
A$1,000) are also subject to GST
Turnover
threshold of
A$75,000
($52,120)
Adopted,
July 1, 2017;
modified
July 1, 2018
Canada State-
specific
Quebec and Saskatchewan have
implemented a GST on nonresident
suppliers of digital services
State-
specific
State-
specific
Chile 19% A new law has been approved which will
oblige VAT registrations for foreign sellers
of streaming media/video, apps, e-books,
gaming, e-learning, SaaS, and other
internet-based services; the measure goes
into effect on June 1, 2020
Adopted,
June 1,
2020
Colombia 18% 1. Colombia is close to approving an
18% VAT on digital services from foreign
suppliers
2. There would be no tax registration
threshold, and B2B transactions would use
the reverse-charge mechanism
3. The law was intended to go into effect
in July 2018 but remains under review
No threshold Not
enforced yet
European
Union
Country-
specific
1. Digital businesses that sell to European
consumers must apply, collect, and remit
VAT against all customer invoices
2. Sales to VAT-registered businesses are
exempt under a reverse-charge scheme,
but business’s VAT registration details are
needed
3. There is no “EU” VAT rate. The rate to be
charged is the rate of the country in which
the customer resides
4. Digital businesses can register to MOSS
(mini one-stop shop) to administer VAT
returns and distribute collected VAT
5. The VAT exemption for small
consignments of less than €22 ($24.60)
will be abolished throughout the European
Union, going into effect from January 1,
2021, based on a tax package related to
cross-border e-commerce approved by
the EU Council in December 2017 and
November 2019
Country-
specific
Adopted,
January 1,
2003 for
non-EU
suppliers;
January 1,
2015 for EU
suppliers
Iceland 22.5%;
11% on
e-books
Foreign companies which sell digital
services to consumers from Iceland
with sales exceeding the threshold of
ISK 2,000,000 ($16,317) are required
to register for VAT in Iceland; if these
foreign companies sell to VAT-registered
businesses, the registration is not required
as the “reverse charge” mechanism applies
ISK
2,000,000
($16,317)
in any
12-month
consecutive
period
and not a
calendar
year
Adopted,
November
1, 2011
12 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Israel 16% Since early 2016, Israel has been working
on the proposals to levy 16% VAT on
supplies of digital services to Israeli
consumers by foreign companies
Under
review by
Parliament
Japan 10% 1. The tax is charged on all B2C
e-commerce transactions delivered by
foreign businesses to Japanese consumers;
Japanese businesses were already paying
the tax
2. Foreign companies must register and
designate a tax agent in Japan
3. B2B transactions apply a “reverse
charge” mechanism, where the recipient
deals with the tax, not the seller
E-books
and courses
JPY 10
million
($91,736)
Adopted,
October 1,
2015
Mexico 16% 1. Mexico has advised nonresident
providers of electronic or digital services to
Mexican consumers that they must register
for VAT by July 1, 2020; this is one month
after VAT will be introduced on foreign-
sourced e-services on June 1, 2020
2. Nonresidents must appoint a local VAT
representative as a correspondent with the
Mexican authorities
3. Once VAT-registered, providers will
be expected to report monthly on VAT
collected, and file by the 17th of the month
following the reporting month
Electronic
books,
newspapers,
and magazines
No threshold Adopted,
June 1,
2020
New
Zealand
15% 1. Digital sellers who provide their services
to New Zealand-based consumers must
also collect two non-conflicting pieces of
evidence proving the customer location (for
example billing address, IPN location, bank
details, or country code of phone number)
2. No distinction is made between B2B and
B2C customers
NZD
$60,000
($39,526)
Adopted,
October 1,
2016
Norway 25% 1. For B2C transactions, businesses
must register for Norwegian VAT if their
annual sales in the country exceed the tax
threshold of NOK 50,000 ($5,681)
2. Concerning B2B services, they operate
a similar scheme to the EU, where VAT is
accounted for by the purchaser under a
reverse-charge mechanism
NOK
50,000
($5,681)
Adopted,
July 1, 2011
South
Korea
10% 1. There is no registration threshold
2. All sellers need to register as a
“Simplified Business Operator” and file VAT
returns via Hometax
3. Returns need to be paid in Korean
Won on a quarterly basis into a VAT bank
account operated by Woori Bank (The
Korean National Tax Service)
Live broadcasts
of webcasts,
access to
recorded
webcasts,
email services,
or discussion
forums
No threshold Adopted,
July 1, 2015
TABLE 4, CONTINUED.
Cross-Border Consumption Taxes on Digital Goods and Services in OECD Countries
Jurisdiction
VAT/GST
Rate Description
Excluded
Goods and
Services
Threshold
for VAT
Registration
Current
Status
TAX FOUNDATION | 13
Switzerland 7.7%;
2.5% on
e-books
and
e-journals
1. Any person who carries on a business
based abroad is liable to register for Swiss
VAT if it provides taxable supplies in
Switzerland and the value of those supplies
(including non-Swiss revenue) exceeds CHF
100,000 ($100,604)
2. Taxable supplies include electronic
supplies to Swiss customers who are not
registered for Swiss VAT
3. Customers that are VAT-registered
will self-assess VAT under the reverse
charge mechanism and will not require the
nonresident supplier to charge VAT
4. Customers that are not registered for
VAT cannot reverse charge electronic
services received from abroad and so the
supplier will need to register in Switzerland
(subject to the registration threshold)
5. After the registration, the supplier shall
charge VAT to both registered and non-
registered customers
1.The
communication
between
the persons
providing and
receiving the
service by wire,
wireless, optical,
or other electro-
magnetic media
2. Educational
services in
interactive form
3. The lending
for use of
specifically
designated
equipment or
equipment parts
for the sole use
of the lessee for
the transmittal
of data
CHF
100,000
($100,604)
Adopted,
January 1,
2010
Turkey 18% 1. If selling to a VAT-registered business
in Turkey, the foreign business does not
need to charge VAT; the buyer will handle
all Turkish VAT through the reverse-charge
mechanism
2. If selling to Turkish consumers, the
foreign business must register for VAT
in Turkey; there is no sales registration
threshold
3. It is possible to register directly as a
business owner, online through MERSIS,
the commercial registry
4. It has to file VAT returns every month;
filings are due on the 24th of the following
month, and payments are due the 28th
No threshold Adopted,
January 1,
2018
United
States
State-
specific
1. Individual states across America have
been adopting a new digital tax law called
economic nexus
2. Nearly half the U.S. states are part of the
Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement
(SSUTA)
3. These states share a simpler, more
uniform tax system, which includes
everything from product definitions to tax
policy
4. In this case, retailers with annual sales
exceeding $100,000 or with more than 200
separate transactions in the state must
register, collect, and pay sales taxes there
5. Annual sales amounts include both B2B
and B2C transactions; however, some
states might design their own threshold
amounts
$100,000 or
more than
200 separate
transactions
in the state;
some states
might design
their own
threshold
amounts
State-
specific
Source: Annie Musgrove, “Digital Tax Around The World: What To Know About New Tax Rules,” Inside Quaderno, June 13, 2016, https://
quaderno.io/blog/digital-taxes-around-world-know-new-tax-rules/; “Digital Tax Rules in Operation across the Globe,” Accessed May 20,
2020, https://blog.taxamo.com/insights/digital-tax-rules-in-operation; Office, Australian Taxation, “GST on Low Value Imported Goods,”
Accessed May 20, 2020, https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/International-tax-for-business/GST-on-low-value-imported-goods/?default;
“Online Resource for Digital Services Value Added Tax,” Accessed May 20, 2020, https://rsmus.com/what-we-do/services/tax/indirect-
tax/global-indirect-tax/digital-services.html.
TABLE 4, CONTINUED.
Cross-Border Consumption Taxes on Digital Goods and Services in OECD Countries
Jurisdiction
VAT/GST
Rate Description
Excluded
Goods and
Services
Threshold
for VAT
Registration
Current
Status
14 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Revenue Impact
More than 50 countries worldwide have already
implemented OECD recommendations
19
for
the effective collection of VAT on cross-border
online sales.
Following OECD guidance on tax
collection, the European Union VAT revenues
collected from these measures rose from €3
billion ($3.4 billion) in 2015 to more than €4.5
billion ($5 billion) in 2018.
20
Australia reported
AUD 348 million ($242 million), higher than
initially budgeted,
21
of new revenues collected
from the implementation of the OECD
standards on online sales of services and digital
products for the year 2017.
Nevertheless, the European Union’s total VAT
revenue in 2015 was €1,037 billion and €1,135
billion ($1,271 billion) in 2018.
22
Therefore,
VAT revenue raised from these measures only
accounted for 0.3 to 0.4 percent of the total
VAT raised in the EU. Australia’s GST revenue
from online digital sales represented 0.5
percent of the total VAT collection.
23
High Compliance Costs
More than 80 countries have already
implemented requirements for companies to
use e-invoicing for reporting taxes on business
transactions. International companies face
serious challenges to comply with disparate
and changing requirements in each of the
countries where they have sales. Even if only
the software requirements were to be taken
into consideration and the continuous updates
needed, the operating costs rise significantly
with each country where they have sales.
19 OECD, “Addressing the Tax Challenges of the Digital Economy, Action 1 - 2015 Final Report,” Oct. 5, 2015, https://doi.
org/10.1787/9789264241046-en.
20 OECD, “OECD Secretary-General Tax Report to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors,” February 2020, http://www.oecd.org/ctp/oecd-
secretary-general-tax-report-g20-finance-ministers-riyadh-saudi-arabia-february-2020.pdf.
21 Ibid.
22 Eurostat, “Main National Accounts Tax Aggregates,” Feb. 24, 2020, https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=gov_10a_taxag&lang=en.
23 Australia’s total VAT revenue in 2017 was AUD 65.7 billion ($46 billion) (OECD, Global Revenue Statistics Database).
24 The additional annual software costs for compliance could be in the millions. See Siri Bulusu and Hamza Ali Jan, “Global Value-Added Tax Crackdown
Costing Companies Millions,” Bloomberg Tax, Jan. 28, 2020.
Complying with the reporting requirements
can be incredibly expensive, and potentially
prohibitive.
24
Reporting systems may become an obstacle
for smaller or newer firms to enter the market
or operate across borders. This is bad both for
competition and for consumers. Also, if there is
a threshold for compliance, companies will try
to shift their activities to avoid reaching that
threshold.
Pitfalls
First, enforcing local rules on companies
established abroad is difficult, especially if
there is no cooperative agreement between
the countries involved. The supplier might
not register in the country of destination if its
sales exceed the threshold to avoid additional
compliance obligations, and the country
of origin for the supplier has no incentives
to ensure that the selling regime is applied
correctly. Many tax authorities lack resources
to deal with the volume of transactions to be
verified.
Second, as seen in one of the previous sections,
VAT collected from cross-border transactions
represents less than 0.5 percent of the
country’s VAT total revenue. Countries should
take into consideration doing an in-depth
cost-benefit analysis before implementing
consumption-based taxation of remote sales.
Nevertheless, as e-commerce continues to grow
so will VAT revenue from cross-border digital
transactions. This will broaden the VAT tax base
and could allow for lower rates in the long term
to raise similar amounts of revenue.
TAX FOUNDATION | 15
Third, depending on the level of tax, the
VAT treatment of certain digital goods could
significantly increase prices for certain services.
For example, Chileans will have to start paying
significantly more for video streaming services
starting in June 2020, when the government’s
19 percent VAT begins to apply to such
services.
25
Similarly, in Mexico, streaming
customers will see the impact of the 16 percent
VAT on streaming services.
26
Best Practices
First, the neutrality of the tax system is
important. Taxes should not interfere in
taxpayers’ decisions, making them prefer
one form of trade over another: for example,
cross-border electronic commerce over local
conventional commerce. Therefore, countries
that apply the same VAT rate for cross-border
transactions and domestic ones, the same
VAT for digital and non-digital products, offer
a neutral tax system. Also, based on the same
neutrality principle, similar VAT exemption/
registration thresholds should apply to foreign
and domestic sellers. A neutral VAT expansion
to digital services removes the distortion of
digital consumption being untaxed while similar
goods or services acquired locally face tax.
Second, it’s important to implement systems
that are efficient and easy to deal with from
an administrative and compliance standpoint.
According to the Ottawa Taxation Framework
Conditions,
27
a tax system should be efficient in
the sense that “compliance costs for taxpayers
and administrative costs for the tax authorities
should be minimized as far as possible.”
Nevertheless, the amount of information that
businesses have to collect in some countries
regarding the transactions and their customers
25 Tom Azzopardi, “Chile’s New Digital Services Tax to Send Netflix Prices Up,” Bloomberg Tax, May 12, 2020, https://news.bloombergtax.com/
daily-tax-report-international/chiles-new-digital-services-tax-to-send-netflix-prices-up.
26 “Netflix to Bill Customers for Mexican VAT on Digital Services,” Tax Notes, May 11, 2020. https://www.taxnotes.com/tax-notes-today-international/
value-added-tax/netflix-bill-customers-mexican-vat-digital-services/2020/05/11/2chrb.
27 OECD, “Electronic Commerce: Taxation Framework Conditions,” Oct. 8, 1998, https://www.oecd.org/ctp/consumption/1923256.pdf.
28 Tech companies criticized Mexico’s digital tax as portions of the plan, such as reporting confidential information about digital transactions, could violate
privacy laws governing trade secrets. See Suman Naishadham, “Mexico Forges Ahead on Plan to Tax Digital Services,” Bloomberg Tax, Oct. 18, 2019.
29 Siri Bulusu and Hamza Ali, “Global Value-Added Tax Crackdown Costing Companies Millions,” Bloomberg Tax, Jan. 28, 2020.
are burdensome and, in some cases, could
violate privacy laws governing trade secrets.
28
In Italy, for example, businesses must now
issue electronic receipts to all customers.
Additionally, companies need to register for a
“digital address” number with the tax authority
and obtain the digital addresses of all their
customers and suppliers.
29
Policymakers need
to balance the compliance costs of information
requirements against the need to verify
compliance with VAT rules.
16 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Digital Services Taxes
As outlined previously, there has been growing
concern about the existing international tax
system not properly capturing the digitalization
of the economy. Under current international tax
rules, multinationals generally pay corporate
income tax where production occurs rather
than where consumers or, specifically for the
digital sector, users are located. However,
some argue that through the digital economy,
businesses (implicitly) derive income from users
abroad but, without a physical presence, are not
subject to corporate income tax in that foreign
country.
To address those concerns about a
misalignment between value creation and
corporate taxation, the OECD has been hosting
negotiations with over 130 countries that aim to
adapt the international tax system. As explained
in detail in the section below on corporate
taxation and the digital economy” the current
proposal would realign international taxing
rights with new measures of value creation,
requiring multinational businesses to pay some
of their corporate income taxes where their
consumers or users are located.
However, despite these ongoing multilateral
negotiations, several countries have decided to
unilaterally move ahead with a different form
of digital taxation—namely, digital services
taxes (DSTs)—as a proxy for corporate taxation.
Instead of adapting the current international
tax rules to better capture the digital economy,
countries impose DSTs to tax large businesses
based on their revenues derived from certain
digital services provided to domestic users or
consumers.
30 See the section on corporate taxation and the digital economy for more on the European Commission’s proposal on a significant digital presence.
31 European Commission, “Proposal for a Council Directive on the Common System of a Digital Services Tax on Revenues Resulting
from the Provision of Certain Digital Services,” Mar. 21, 2018, https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/
proposal_common_system_digital_services_tax_21032018_en.pdf.
32 The 2019 average yearly exchange rate was used (0.893). See Internal Revenue Service, “Yearly Average Currency Exchange Rates,” accessed Apr. 27,
2020, https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/yearly-average-currency-exchange-rates.
33 European Commission, “Digital Taxation: Commission Proposes New Measures to Ensure That All Companies Pay Fair Tax in the EU,” accessed Apr. 27,
2020, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_2041.
34 Total tax revenue data covers EU-28 and is based on Eurostat data. See Eurostat, “Main National Accounts Tax Aggregates,” Feb. 24, 2020, https://
appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=gov_10a_taxag&lang=en.
Digital Services Taxes around the World
Over the last few years, countries around
the world have announced, proposed, and in
some cases already implemented DSTs. First
proposed as an EU-wide tax, DSTs are now
unilateral measures found on every continent.
EU Proposal for a DST
In March 2018, the European Commission put
forth a proposal to establish rules that allow
for corporate taxation of businesses with a
significant digital presence.
30
While this is the
long-term objective of the proposal, it also
proposes a DST that would be implemented as
an interim measure until the significant digital
presence rules are in place.
31
The EU’s DST would be a 3 percent tax on
revenues from digital advertising, online
marketplaces, and sales of user data generated
in the EU. Businesses are in scope if their annual
global revenues exceed €750 million (US $840
million
32
) and EU revenues exceed €50 million
($56 million). The tax is estimated to generate
€5 billion ($5.6 billion) annually for EU member
states,
33
translating to 0.08 percent of total tax
revenues collected in the EU in 2018.
34
The European Commission was unable to
find the necessary unanimous support for
the proposal to be adopted. However, it has
indicated that, in case the OECD does not reach
an agreement, it will resume its work on taxing
the digital economy.
TAX FOUNDATION | 17
Unilateral DSTs
35
Since the European Commission was unable
to reach an agreement on an EU-wide DST,
several European countries have decided
to move forward with DSTs unilaterally. In
addition, countries outside of Europe have also
moved towards DSTs. While each country’s
DST is unique in its design, most have adopted
several elements from the EU’s DST proposal.
The following four countries—France, United
Kingdom, Austria, and India—are examples of
countries that have implemented DSTs with
various design elements.
France
France introduced its DST in July 2019,
retroactive to January 2019. The DST imposes
a 3 percent levy on gross revenues generated
from digital interface services, targeted online
advertising, and the sale of data collected about
users for advertising purposes.
36
Companies will
be in scope if they have both more than €750
million ($840 million) in worldwide revenues
and €25 million ($28 million) in French revenues.
The tax is estimated to generate €500 million
($560 million) annually—1.01 percent of France’s
corporate income taxes and 0.05 percent of
total tax revenue collected in 2018.
37
35 A summary of all announced, proposed, and implemented DSTs around the world can be found in Table 1 of the Appendix.
36 Ministère de l’Économie et des Finances de la République française, “Projet de Loi Relatif à La Taxation Des Grandes Entreprises Du Numérique,” Mar.
6, 2019, https://src.bna.com/F9D.
37 Total and corporate tax revenue data is based on OECD statistics. See OECD, “Global Revenue Statistics Database,” accessed Apr. 27, 2020, https://
stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=RS_GBL.
38 Office of the United States Trade Representative, “Report on France’s Digital Services Tax Prepared in the Investigation under Section 301 of the Trade
Act of 1974,” Dec. 2, 2019, https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Report_On_France%27s_Digital_Services_Tax.pdf.
39 Chris Giles, “US and France Agree Deal on Digital Tax,” Financial Times, Jan. 23, 2020, https://www.ft.com/
content/76cf4008-3db1-11ea-b232-000f4477fbca.
40 The U.K. Finance Bill 2020—which includes the digital tax measure—is at the committee stage in the House of Commons as of April 2020. See UK
Parliament, “Finance Bill 2019-21,” accessed Apr. 29, 2020, https://services.parliament.uk/Bills/2019-21/finance.html.
41 HM Treasury, “Budget 2020,” Mar. 12, 2020, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2020-documents/budget-2020.
42 The 2019 average yearly exchange rate was used (0.784). See Internal Revenue Service, “Yearly Average Currency Exchange Rates.”
43 HM Revenue & Customs, “Introduction of the New Digital Services Tax: Draft Legislation,” 2019, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/
uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/816361/Digital_services_tax.pdf.
Following France’s adoption of the DST, the
United States Trade Representative opened
a Section 301 investigation into whether the
French DST was a discriminatory tax on U.S.
businesses. It found the tax to be discriminatory
and proposed retaliatory tariffs.
38
To prevent
such tariffs, France agreed to postpone the
collection of its DST in 2020 (although tax
liability accrues in 2020), as the OECD hopes to
reach an agreement by the end of 2020.
39
United Kingdom
The UK’s DST became effective in April 2020,
40
with the first payment due in April 2021.
41
The
tax is levied at a rate of 2 percent on revenues
from social media platforms, internet search
engines, and online marketplaces. Unlike other
proposals, the tax includes an exemption for
the first ₤25 million ($31.9 million
42
) of taxable
revenues and provides an alternative DST
calculation under a “safe harbor” for businesses
with low profit margins on in-scope activities.
The revenue thresholds are set at ₤500 million
($638 million) globally and ₤25 million ($31.9
million) domestically.
43
18 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
The tax is expected to raise ₤275 million ($358
million) in fiscal year 2020-21 and ₤440 million
($572 million) in fiscal year 2023-24.
44
The fiscal
year 2023-24 revenue estimate constitutes 0.06
percent of total tax revenue and 0.72 percent of
corporate tax revenue in 2018.
Austria
Effective January 2020, Austria implemented
a DST. The new digital advertising tax applies
at a 5 percent rate on revenue from online
advertising provided by businesses that have
worldwide revenues exceeding €750 million
($840 million) and Austrian revenues exceeding
€25 million ($28 million).
45
As Austria’s DST is
only levied on online advertising, its scope is
narrower than, for example, France’s or UK’s
DST.
Traditional advertisement is subject to a special
advertisement tax in Austria.
46
One can argue
that the DST thus levels the playing field
between traditional and digital advertisement.
However, the DST’s global and domestic
44 HM Revenue & Customs, “Introduction of the New Digital Services Tax,” July 11, 2019, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/
introduction-of-the-new-digital-services-tax/introduction-of-the-new-digital-services-tax.
45 Bundesministerium für Digitalisierung und Wirtschaftsstandort, “Digitalsteuergesetz 2020 (DiStG 2020)” (2019), https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/
GeltendeFassung.wxe?Abfrage=Bundesnormen&Gesetzesnummer=20010780.
46 Bundesministerium für Finanzen, “Werbeabgabe,” accessed Apr. 28, 2020, https://www.bmf.gv.at/themen/steuern/steuern-von-a-bis-z/werbeabgabe.
html#heading_Bemessungsgrundlage.
47 Income Tax Department - Government of India, “Equalisation Levy,” accessed Apr. 29, 2020, https://incometaxindia.gov.in/Pages/acts/equalisation-levy.
aspx.
48 An “e-commerce operator” is defined as a nonresident that owns, operates, or manages a digital or electronic facility or platform for online sale of
goods or the online provision of services.
49 The 2019 average yearly exchange rate used was 70.394. See Internal Revenue Service, “Yearly Average Currency Exchange Rates.”
50 “The Finance Bill, 2020,” Pub. L. No. 26-C of 2020, http://164.100.47.4/BillsTexts/LSBillTexts/PassedLoksabha/26-C_2020_LS_Eng.pdf.
revenue thresholds effectively exclude most
domestic providers of digital advertisement,
creating new distortions.
The DST is expected to raise €25 million ($28
million) in 2020, climbing to €34 million ($38
million) in 2023. The revenue raised in 2023
compares to 0.33 percent of corporate tax
revenues and 0.02 percent of total tax revenues
raised in 2018.
India
Effective from June 2016, India introduced an
“equalisation levy,” a 6 percent tax on gross
revenues from online advertising services
provided by nonresident businesses.
47
As of
April 2020, the equalisation levy expanded
to apply a 2 percent tax on revenues of
e-commerce operators
48
that are nonresident
businesses without a permanent establishment
in India and are not subject to the already
existing 6 percent equalisation levy. The
annual revenue threshold is set at Rs. 2 crores
($284,115
49
).
50
TABLE 5.
Revenue Estimate of the UK’s DST
(Million ₤)
FY Revenue
2019 to 2020 +5
2020 to 2021 +275
2021 to 2022 +370
2022 to 2023 +400
2023 to 2024 +440
Note: The UK fiscal year ends on April 5 each year.
Source: HM Revenue & Customs, “Introduction of the New
Digital Services Tax,” July 11, 2019, https://www.gov.uk/
government/publications/introduction-of-the-new-digital-
services-tax/introduction-of-the-new-digital-services-tax.
TABLE 6.
Revenue Estimate of Austria’s DST
(Million €)
FY Revenue
2020 +25
2021 +28
2022 +31
2023 +34
Source: Bundesministerium für Finanzen, “Vorblatt und
Wirkungsorientierte Folgenabschätzung,” Apr. 4, 2019,
https://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXVI/ME/
ME_00132/fname_746835.pdf.
TAX FOUNDATION | 19
The change essentially expands the equalisation
levy from online advertising to nearly all
e-commerce done in India by businesses that
do not have a taxable presence in India, making
it a much broader tax than the European DSTs
described above and explicitly exempting
domestic businesses.
Overview of DSTs in Europe
About half of all European OECD countries have
either announced, proposed, or implemented a
DST. As of May 2020, Austria, France, Hungary,
Italy, Turkey, and the United Kingdom have
implemented a DST. The Czech Republic,
Poland, Slovakia, and Spain have published
proposals to enact a DST, and Latvia, Norway,
and Slovenia have either officially announced or
shown intentions to implement such a tax.
51 Sean Lowry, “Digital Services Taxes (DSTs): Policy and Economic Analysis,” Congressional Research Service, Feb. 25, 2019, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/
R45532.pdf.
Overview of DSTs outside of Europe
Although most prevalent in Europe, DSTs
have also been announced, proposed,
or implemented in other regions of the
world. India, Indonesia, and Tunisia have all
implemented DSTs. Brazil and Kenya have
proposed a DST, and Canada, Israel, and New
Zealand have shown intentions to propose
such a tax. The Chilean government ultimately
rejected a 2018 proposal to introduce a DST.
Economic Incidence of DSTs
The economic incidence of a DST is likely to
be closer in nature to an excise tax than to
a corporate income tax.
51
While economic
literature shows that the corporate income
tax is largely borne by shareholders—with
shareholder income disproportionately
What is the Current State of Digital Services Taxes in Europe?
TAX FOUNDATION
Announced, Proposed, and Implemented Digital Services Taxes in Europe, as of May 2020
Source: KPMG, “Taxaon of the Digitalized Economy.”
TR
PT
ES
FR
DE
IT
NL
FI
EE
SE
IE
PL
GB
IS
CH
AT
CZ
SK
LU
BE
LV
SI
GR
NO
Implemented a Digital Services Tax
LT
DK
HU
Proposed a Digital Services Tax
Announced or Shown Intenons
for a Digital Services Tax
20 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
concentrated in higher-income households—
excise taxes are usually borne by consumers
through higher prices. As lower-income
individuals consume a larger share of their
income, excise taxes tend to be rather
regressive.
The exact equity effects of a DST, however,
depend on the ability to pass the tax on to
consumers, the type of goods and services
sold, and consumers’ responsiveness to the
tax.
52
Anecdotal evidence suggests that some
companies targeted by DSTs have passed
the tax on to customers or consumers. For
instance, Google has announced that it will
add Austria’s 5 percent DST entirely to the
invoices of customers who have purchased
Google advertisements that are clicked on or
seen by users in Austria, regardless of where
the advertiser is located.
53
Similarly, Amazon has
decided to pass on France’s DST by increasing
its commission rate on businesses selling on
Amazon’s French marketplace by 3 percent.
54
DSTs and their Design Issues
Unlike corporate income taxes, DSTs are levied
on revenues rather than profits, not taking into
account profitability. Seemingly low tax rates
of such turnover taxes can translate into high-
tax burdens.
55
For instance, a business with
$100 in revenue and $85 in costs has a profit
margin of $15—or 15 percent. A DST rate of
3 percent means the business is required to pay
$3 in revenue tax (3 percent of $100 revenue),
corresponding to a profit tax of 20 percent ($3
tax divided by $15 profit). This implies that the
corresponding effective profit tax rates vary
by profitability, disproportionately harming
businesses with lower profit margins.
52 Ibid.
53 The Local, “Google to Raise Ad Fees to Cover Austrian Tax: Source,” Feb. 1, 2020, https://www.thelocal.at/20200201/
google-to-raise-ad-fees-to-cover-austrian-tax-source.
54 Le Figaro, “Amazon France répercutera la «taxe Gafa» sur
ses tarifs aux entreprises,” Aug. 1, 2019, https://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-eco/
amazon-france-repercutera-la-taxe-gafa-sur-ses-tarifs-aux-entreprises-20190801.
55 European Commission, “Impact Assessment Accompanying the Document Proposal for a Council Directive Laying down Rules Relating to the
Corporate Taxation of a Significant Digital Presence and Proposal for a Council Directive on the Common System of a Digital Services Tax on Revenues
Resulting from the Provision of Certain Digital Services,” Mar. 21, 2018, https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/fair_taxation_
digital_economy_ia_21032018.pdf.
56 Garrett Watson, “Resisting the Allure of Gross Receipts Taxes: An Assessment of Their Costs and Consequences,” Tax Foundation, Feb. 6, 2019, https://
taxfoundation.org/gross-receipts-tax/.
Turnover taxes can apply multiple times over
the supply chain as—unlike in the case of
Value-Added Taxes (VAT)—there is no built-in
credit system for already paid taxes. Such tax
pyramiding can distort economic activity and
magnify effective tax rates.
56
Although such an
effect is less likely in the case of DSTs as they
are only levied at certain stages in the supply
chain as opposed to all stages, it is a source
of inefficiency inherent to turnover taxes.
Unlike VATs, turnover taxes also do not exempt
business inputs. DSTs may tax business inputs
such as advertising and cloud computing.
In addition, DSTs are discriminatory in terms of
firm size. The domestic and worldwide revenue
thresholds result in the tax being solely applied
to large multinationals. While this can ease the
overall administrative burden, it also provides
a relative advantage for businesses below
the threshold and creates an incentive for
businesses operating near the threshold to alter
their behavior. Similarly, digital businesses are at
a relative disadvantage to non-digital businesses
operating in a similar field—e.g., online and
traditional advertising.
The introduction of a DST also creates
new administrative and compliance costs.
Governments have to provide detailed
guidelines of how the tax is calculated and
remitted, and administer and enforce it. At the
same time, businesses are required to identify
the location of users and determine its taxable
base.
TAX FOUNDATION | 21
Due to the issues outlined above and to
enhance the functioning of the European cross-
border market, Europe replaced its turnover
taxes with VATs in the 1960s.
57
The emergence
of DSTs reintroduces the negative economic
consequences of turnover taxes—a step back in
terms of sound tax policy.
57 Garrett Watson and Daniel Bunn, “Learning from Europe and America’s Gross Receipts Tax Experiences,” Tax Foundation, Feb. 12, 2019, https://
taxfoundation.org/europe-america-gross-receipts-taxes/.
22 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Tax Preferences for Digital
and Hi-Tech Income
Innovation leads to technological progress
and is the main driver of long-term economic
growth. To foster such innovation, countries
around the world have implemented various
financial support instruments that aim to
incentivize private research and development
(R&D) investments. Many governments provide
direct grants for R&D. Tax preferences for
innovation-related activities have become more
common over the last years.
58
Countries compete to attract and hold
intellectual property assets—such as patents,
copyrights, and trademarks—as they are
associated with positive economic effects and
potentially provide new tax revenue streams.
However, such intangible assets are highly
mobile, making it relatively easy to shift them
from one country to another.
59
One way
through which countries attempt to attract
and hold such assets is through preferential tax
treatments.
Incentives to spur innovation and competition
to attract and hold intangible assets have led
to a broad application of tax preferences for
various innovation-related activities. Digital
business models tend to rely more heavily on
such activities and can thus disproportionately
take advantage of associated tax preferences,
indirectly providing them with a tax advantage
over less R&D-heavy business models.
Innovation-Related Tax Preferences in
the OECD
Preferential tax treatments for innovation-
related activities generally take the form of
expenditure-based tax incentives—e.g., shorter
58 Silvia Appelt, “OECD Time-Series Estimates of Government Tax Relief for Business R&D” OECD, Dec. 18, 2019, http://www.oecd.org/sti/rd-tax-stats-
tax-expenditures.pdf.
59 Silvia Appelt et al., “R&D Tax Incentives: Evidence on Design, Incidence and Impacts” OECD, Sept. 10, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1787/5jlr8fldqk7j-en.
60 Christoph Spengel et al., “Steuerliche Standortattraktivität digitaler Geschäftsmodelle” ZEW, PwC, December 2018, https://www.pwc.de/de/steuern/
pwc-studie-steuerlicher-digitalisierungsindex-2018.pdf.
depreciation schedules for intangible assets
or R&D tax credits—or income-based tax
incentives—e.g., patent boxes. Each of these
incentives lowers businesses’ effective tax rates
on income derived from activities that qualify
for the preferential tax treatment.
Immediate Cost Deductions
Software development and the development
of other intangible assets tend to play a more
important role for digital companies than for
more traditional business models. Costs related
to such activities—employees’ wages and other
current development costs—are immediately
deductible in most countries’ tax codes,
lowering a business’s taxable income and thus
its effective tax rate.
60
Depreciation Schedules for Intangible Assets
Traditional corporate income tax systems
require businesses to depreciate their capital
investments over a certain number of years,
with the number of years depending on the
asset category. By the end of the depreciation
period, the business would have deducted the
initial dollar cost of the asset. However, in most
cases, depreciation schedules do not consider
the time value of money (a normal return plus
inflation). As a result, amounts written off in
later years are less valuable in real terms.
The costs of a capital investment that can be
written off in real terms can be expressed as a
percentage of the net present value of capital
allowances that businesses can deduct over
the life of an asset. A 100 percent capital cost
recovery rate represents a business’s ability to
deduct the full cost of the investment (including
a normal return plus inflation), increasing the
after-tax rate of return and thus making the
TAX FOUNDATION | 23
investment more profitable.
61
For digital businesses, software, hardware,
and intangible assets are the most important
types of capital investments.
62
A study by
Spengel et al. shows that around two-thirds
of the 33 countries covered
63
provide shorter
depreciation schedules for software and
hardware than for other movable capital
assets,
64
translating into higher capital
allowances in real terms and thus a capital cost
recovery rate closer to 100 percent. In other
words, the shorter depreciation schedules for
software and hardware lower the effective tax
rates on such investments.
61 Elke Asen, “Capital Cost Recovery across the OECD,” Tax Foundation, Apr. 8, 2020, https://taxfoundation.org/publications/
capital-cost-recovery-across-the-oecd/.
62 Christoph Spengel et al., “Steuerliche Standortattraktivität digitaler Geschäftsmodelle.”
63 The study covers all 27 EU countries, plus Canada, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
64 Christoph Spengel et al., “Steuerliche Standortattraktivität digitaler Geschäftsmodelle.”
Intangible assets tend to also have relatively
short depreciation schedules. Businesses in
the OECD are able to recover on average 77.4
percent of their investments in intangible assets
in real terms, while the recovery rate is only
48.3 percent for buildings (83.8 percent for
machinery).
Targeted Expenditure-Based R&D Tax
Incentives
To attract and foster R&D investments, many
countries not only provide direct government
grants for R&D but also increasingly make use
of targeted tax incentives—such as R&D tax
credits and enhanced allowances. Such
expenditure-based tax incentives increase the
amount of costs that can be deducted from the
tax base, decreasing the effective tax rate and
thus incentivizing such R&D investments.
Global Tax
Revenue Gains
48.3%
83.8%
77.4%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Buildings Machinery Intangible Assets
Digital Businesses Benefit from Higher Capital
Allowances for Intangible Assets
OECD Average Net Present Value of Capital Allowances by Asset Type, 2019
Note: To calculate the net present values, a fixed discount rate of 7.5 percent is assumed (fixed inflaon rate of 2 percent and fixed real discount rate
of 5.5 percent).
Source: Spengel, et al., “Effecve Tax Levels Using the Devereux/Griffith Methodology;” EY, “Worldwide Capital and Fixed Assets Guide;” EY,
“Worldwide Corporate Tax Guide;” and PwC, “Worldwide Tax Summaries.” Calculaons as in Tax Foundaon, “Capital Cost Recovery across the
OECD.”
24 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Estonia, Finland, Luxembourg, and Switzerland
are the only OECD countries that did not
report any R&D-related tax expenditures in
2017 (most recent data available).
65
Germany
introduced its first R&D tax credit in 2020.
66
In the OECD, R&D tax incentives increased
from 36 percent of total public R&D support
in 2006 to 50 percent by 2017. In 2017, total
R&D tax relief in the OECD amounted to
USD $45 billion,
67
or 0.08 percent of OECD
countries’ GDP.
Among OECD countries, Belgium, France, and
the United Kingdom had the highest shares of
expenditure-based R&D tax incentives in 2017,
at 0.30 percent, 0.28 percent, and 0.21 percent
of GDP—or 7.32 percent, 12.11 percent, and
7.51 percent of corporate tax revenues. Of
the OECD countries that provided R&D tax
relief in 2017, it was lowest in Mexico (0.003
percent of GDP or 0.07 percent of corporate
revenues), Latvia (0.003 percent of GDP or
0.16 percent of corporate revenues), and Poland
(0.005 percent of GDP or 0.27 percent of
corporate revenues).
68
Patent Boxes
69
Patent boxes—also referred to as intellectual
property, or IP, regimes—provide tax rates
on income derived from IP that are below
statutory corporate tax rates. This means that
patent boxes are an income-based rather than
an expenditure-based tax incentive, limiting its
benefits to successful R&D projects that have
produced IP rights rather than decreasing the ex
ante risks of R&D through cost reductions.
65 OECD, “R&D Tax Incentive Indicators: R&D Tax Expenditure and Direct Government Funding of BERD,” Apr. 17, 2020, https://stats.oecd.org/Index.
aspx?DataSetCode=RDTAX.
66 Bundesministerium der Finanzen, “Gesetz zur steuerlichen Förderung von Forschung und Entwicklung,” Dec. 12, 2020, https://www.
bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/DE/Gesetzestexte/Gesetze_Gesetzesvorhaben/Abteilungen/Abteilung_IV/19_Legislaturperiode/Gesetze_
Verordnungen/2019-12-20-Forschungszulagengesetz-FZulG/0-Gesetz.html.
67 Silvia Appelt, “OECD Time-Series Estimates of Government Tax Relief for Business R&D.”
68 OECD, “R&D Tax Incentive Indicators: R&D Tax Expenditure and Direct Government Funding of BERD;” and OECD, “Global Revenue Statistics
Database,” accessed Apr. 27, 2020, https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=RS_GBL.
69 See Table 2 in the Appendix for an overview of all European and OECD countries’ patent box regimes.
70 Gary Guenther, “Patent Boxes: A Primer” Congressional Research Service, May 1, 2017, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44829.pdf.
71 OECD, “Action 5: Agreement on Modified Nexus Approach for IP Regimes,” 2015, https://www.oecd.org/ctp/beps-action-5-agreement-on-modified-
nexus-approach-for-ip-regimes.pdf.
Eligible types of IP are most commonly patents
and software copyrights. Depending on the
patent box, income derived from IP can include
royalties, licensing fees, gains on the sale of IP,
sales of goods and services incorporating IP, and
patent infringement damage awards.
70
Patent boxes are particularly prevalent in
Europe. Currently, 14 of the 27 EU member
states have a patent box regime in place:
Belgium, Cyprus, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands,
Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain (federal,
Basque Country, and Navarre). Several non-EU
countries—such as Switzerland and the United
Kingdom—have also implemented patent box
regimes. The tax rates on qualifying income
range from 0 percent in Hungary and San
Marino to 13.95 percent in Italy.
Several countries outside of Europe—including
China, India, Israel, and Korea—have also
implemented patent boxes.
Patent boxes came under scrutiny during the
OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting
(BEPS) project as many existing regimes did
not require local R&D investment, making it
relatively easy to shift IP rights without the
underlying R&D activities and thus making
them a tool for tax avoidance. In 2015, OECD
countries agreed on a so-called Modified Nexus
Approach for patent boxes as part of Action 5
of the BEPS project.
71
This Modified Nexus Approach limits the
scope of qualifying IP assets and requires a
link among R&D expenditures, IP assets, and
IP income. In other words, a business can only
TAX FOUNDATION | 25
take advantage of the reduced tax rate if it
undertook the R&D underlying the IP-derived
income. Marketing-related IP assets such as
trademarks do not qualify for tax benefits under
the nexus standard, however. To be in line
with this approach, previously noncompliant
countries have either abolished or amended
their patent box regimes within the last few
years.
72
Grandfathering rights were put in place.
A 2014 study by Griffith, Miller, and O’Connell
models the location and revenue impact of
recently introduced patent boxes. Their findings
suggest that patent boxes are likely to attract
72 OECD, “Harmful Tax Practices - 2018 Progress Report on Preferential Regimes,” 2019, https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/taxation/
harmful-tax-practices-2018-progress-report-on-preferential-regimes_9789264311480-en#page19.
73 Rachel Griffith, Helen Miller, and Martin O’Connell, “Ownership of Intellectual Property and Corporate Taxation,” Journal of Public Economics 112 (April
2014): 12–23, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272714000103.
74 While there is no multi-country database showing the tax revenue costs of patent boxes as there is for expenditure-based R&D tax incentives, the UK
provides cost estimates for its patent box (10 percent tax rate on patent income compared to the statutory rate of 19 percent). The estimate shows
the IP regime cost £1.16 billion ($1.48 billion) in tax year 2019/20, or 1.89 percent of total corporate tax revenues. See HM Revenue & Customs,
“Estimated Costs of Tax Reliefs,” Oct. 10, 2019, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/
file/837766/191009_Bulletin_FINAL.pdf.
new income derived from patents, implying that
businesses reduce their corporate tax liability
by shifting IP-related income. Tax revenues,
however, are likely to decline substantially,
as the negative revenue effects of the lower
statutory rate on patent income can be only
partially offset by revenues from newly
attracted patent income.
73, 74
How Do Patent Box Regimes Compare across Europe?
TAX FOUNDATION
Effecve Corporate Income Tax Rates
on Qualifying IP Income under a
Patent Box Regime as of 2020
Lower Higher
TR
PT
ES (b)
FR
HU (a)
DE
IT
NL
FI
EE
SE
IE
PL
GB
IS
NO
7.0%
11.0%
4.5%
6.25%
10.0%
10.0%
10.5%
13.95%
10.0%
Effecve Corporate Income Tax Rates on Qualifying IP Income under a Patent Box Regime as of 2020
CH (c)
AT
CZ
SK
5.0%
5.0%
LU
5.2%
BE
4.44%
LV
SI
GR
LT
DK
Notes:
(a) Capital gains of qualifying IP are taxed at zero percent.
(b) The two Spanish regions "Basque Country" and "Navarra" have separate patent boxes.
(c) Switzerland's patent box regime operates at the cantonal level. As a result, effecve tax
rates differ.
Source: OECD, “Intellectual Property Regimes.”
CY
2.5%
SM
MT
AD
1.75%0%
2.0%
10.5%
26 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
U.S. Regimes: Foreign Derived Intangible
Income (FDII) and Global Intangible Low Tax
Income (GILTI)
As part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
(TCJA), the United States introduced two new
regimes related to the taxation of intangible
income, namely Foreign Derived Intangible
Income (FDII) and Global Intangible Low Tax
Income (GILTI).
75
FDII constitutes a regime that reduces the
effective tax rate on income derived from
the use of intellectual property in the United
States to create exports of goods and services.
The effective tax rate on such income stands
at 13.125 percent, compared to the statutory
corporate income tax rate of 21 percent. In
other words, it indirectly provides an export-
subsidy for goods and services created using IP.
GILTI provides a 10.5 to 13.125 percent tax rate
on earnings that exceed a 10 percent return
on a business’s invested foreign assets.
76
Any
profits exceeding that ordinary 10 percent
return are assumed to be connected to the
returns to IP or profit shifting.
Under the taxation of GILTI and FDII,
U.S.-based multinational companies face
approximately the same corporate tax rate
on intangible assets used in serving foreign
markets—regardless of where those intangibles
are located. If intellectual property is located in
a foreign market and is used to sell products to
foreign customers, it faces a minimum tax rate
of between 10.5 percent and 13.125 percent
through GILTI. If that same intellectual property
is located in the United States and is used to sell
products to those same foreign customers, it
faces a tax rate of 13.125 percent through FDII.
75 Kyle Pomerleau, “A Hybrid Approach: The Treatment of Foreign Profits under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” Tax Foundation, May 3, 2018, https://
taxfoundation.org/treatment-foreign-profits-tax-cuts-jobs-act/.
76 Due to interactions with other parts of U.S. tax law, businesses can face an effective tax rate that is in excess of 13.125 percent. See Kyle Pomerleau,
“What’s up with Being GILTI?” Tax Foundation, Mar. 14, 2019, https://taxfoundation.org/gilti-2019/.
77 Mark Parsons and Nicholas Phillips, “An Evaluation of the Federal Tax Credit for Scientific Research and Experimental Development,” Canadian
Department of Finance, September 2007, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.456.8766&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
78 Silvia Appelt et al., “R&D Tax Incentives: Evidence on Design, Incidence and Impacts.”
FDII and GILTI combined act as both a
disincentive to shift IP and its associated
corporate profits out of the United States and
an indirect tax subsidy for IP-related exports.
Innovation Impacts of Expenditure- and
Income-Based R&D Tax Preferences
The main objective governments usually state
when implementing R&D tax incentives is to
foster innovation. Whether this goal can be
achieved significantly depends on the design of
the incentive, with evidence for expenditure-
and income-based incentives pointing in
different directions.
Expenditure-Based Tax Incentives
The effect of expenditure-based R&D tax
incentives is commonly studied by estimating
their impact on R&D investments. A 2007 paper
by Parsons and Phillips reviews a broad range of
studies estimating the relationship between the
cost of R&D and R&D investment. Their review
suggests that on average a 10 percent reduction
in the cost of R&D—for example through R&D
tax incentives—leads to a 10.9 percent increase
in R&D investment in the long run, making it
an effective measure in terms of “bang-for-the-
buck.”
77
While it is difficult to measure the effect
of R&D tax incentives on actual innovative
outputs rather than only R&D investments,
evidence generally suggests a positive effect
on innovative sales and the number of new
products.
78
Income-Based Tax Incentives
Partly due to their novelty, the literature around
the impact of income-based tax incentives—
TAX FOUNDATION | 27
such as patent boxes—on innovation is less well
developed so far. While evidence suggests that
patent boxes have a significant impact on where
patents and other qualifying IP are located,
79
there is less evidence that patent boxes
incentivize innovation. A 2016 IMF analysis
finds positive R&D spending effects of patent
boxes in Belgium and the Netherlands but finds
no effect in France and Spain—with the cause
for this difference being unclear.
80
Conclusion
Positive spillover effects and its vital impact
on long-term economic growth make high
levels of innovation a desirable objective. The
innovation-related tax incentives outlined above
reflect governments’ efforts to incentivize such
innovative activities.
However, certain sectors and businesses
disproportionately benefit from tax
preferences, creating an unlevel playing field.
In particular, the case for patent boxes seems
weak: evidence suggests that such regimes
allow for profit shifting, can have negative
revenue effects, and their impact on innovation
is either unclear or relatively weak. While
the new nexus standards might change these
effects, grandfathering rules will likely slow the
transition.
79 Rachel Griffith, Helen Miller, and Martin O’Connell, “Ownership of Intellectual Property and Corporate Taxation;” and Annette Alstadsæter et al.,
“Patent Boxes Design, Patents Location, and Local R&D,” Economic Policy 33:93 (Jan. 2, 2018): 131–177, https://doi.org/10.1093/epolic/eix021.
80 IMF, “IMF Fiscal Monitor - Acting Now, Acting Together, ” April 2016, https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/FM/Issues/2016/12/31/
Acting-Now-Acting-Together.
28 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Corporate Taxation and the
Digital Economy
Corporate tax systems have been evolving to
respond to the digitalization of the economy.
Some countries have changed their corporate
tax rules to require digital businesses that do
not have employees or operations in their
country to pay taxes on the sales or other
activities that take place there via the internet.
Multinational business models of digital
companies interact with tax systems all over the
globe. Because of this, corporate tax changes
aimed at digital businesses can change not only
taxes paid by the businesses but also the tax
bases in other countries.
The rationale behind many proposals to tax
digital businesses is to eliminate inequities
that arise from businesses that do not have
operations within a country’s borders but earn
income from services provided there.
Attempts to address these issues come from
individual countries and multilateral forums.
Unilateral policies to change where a business
pays tax directly impact whether that business
is paying tax twice or whether another
country’s tax base is infringed upon. Multilateral
efforts have the potential to change the rules
for digital companies without resulting in
double taxation.
As with Digital Services Taxes, some
approaches on corporate taxation apply to
gross income rather than net income. These
policies are more distortive in nature than
income taxes and can create high marginal tax
rates.
Significant Economic Presence and
Digital Nexus Standards
One key feature of corporate tax systems
around the world is the legal identification
of a local entity that is liable to pay taxes.
Businesses and workers are generally required
to pay taxes where they earn their income.
The common standard for determining when
a business is liable to pay tax in a country
depends on whether that business has a
permanent establishment there.
The permanent establishment could be
identified by ongoing operations in the country
with employees, sales representatives, or other
activities.
For digital business models, some countries
have been expanding their permanent
establishment definitions to not only include
businesses with physical operations in a
jurisdiction but also those with sustained
economic activity there through digital means.
This could include a company that has dedicated
digital marketing and digital storefronts
targeting customers in a country, or a business
that passes certain thresholds for the level of
sales or contracts in a country.
Proposals in Europe, Africa, and Asia have
outlined multiple approaches for determining
when a company that is providing digital goods
or services into a country could be liable for
paying corporate income tax.
However, when a country expands its tax base
by redefining what constitutes a permanent
establishment, this can result in double taxation
or a redistribution of taxing rights. If countries
worked together to redefine permanent
establishment definitions, double taxation could
be avoided.
Moving Alone Can Create Double Taxation
Consider a streaming business that has $100
million in taxable profits. The business has its
headquarters and all its operations in Country
A and millions of subscribers and users around
the world. In this example, it does not matter
whether the business earns its revenue from
TAX FOUNDATION | 29
paid subscriptions or through other means.
Country B accounts for 20 percent of global
users. Both countries have a 20 percent
corporate income tax rate.
Under standard permanent establishment
definitions, the company would owe $20 million
in taxes to Country A.
However, if Country B adopts a digital
permanent establishment definition without
conferring with Country A, double taxation
can occur. Country B could adopt a rule that
requires businesses to pay income taxes based
on the share of global users in the country. In
that case, 20 percent of taxable profits would
be taxed in Country B. However, Country
A would continue taxing the business and
ultimately 120 percent of the business’s income
would be taxed.
To provide some relief from double taxation,
Country A could offer a tax credit for taxes paid
in Country B, but that would reduce Country A’s
tax base.
81
If the countries are unable to resolve
a dispute over the taxing rights, the business
would be caught in the middle paying tax twice
on the same income.
Moving Together to Avoid Double Taxation
The previous example shows how simple it can
be for one country to change a policy that
81 Most countries do offer some form of foreign tax credit for corporate taxes paid elsewhere. However, some new, unilateral approaches to taxing digital
businesses have left open questions about whether foreign tax credits would apply.
either erodes the tax base of another country
or leaves a business paying tax twice. One way
to solve this issue is to have multiple countries
rewrite international tax rules together.
For example, a group of countries could work
together to rewrite their tax treaties and
domestic tax legislation to have additional
digital permanent establishment rules alongside
rules that ensure that double taxation does not
occur.
If instead of Country B from the example being
the only country taxing the streaming business
based on its share of global users, imagine
that a group of five countries (A, B, C, D, and
E) all with 20 percent corporate income tax
rates agrees that taxation based on users is
appropriate. To avoid double taxation, Country
A provides a tax credit for taxes paid in the
other countries; any amount paid in the other
four countries reduces the amount paid in
Country A.
The business now pays tax in five countries.
In four countries, its tax liability is based on
its share of users in those countries, and in
Country A the business is taxed on its profits as
usual minus a tax credit for those taxes paid in
the other countries. Country A’s tax share, by
formula, also reflects its share of global users.
TABLE 7.
A Unilateral Change to Permanent Establishment Rules Can Create Double
Taxation
Scenario 1: Country A Taxes
Permanent Establishment (PE)
Scenario 2: Country A Taxes PE
and Country B Taxes Digital PE
Taxable Income Tax Liability
Attributed
Taxable Income Tax Liability
Country A All assets and employees,
50% of global users
$100 million $20 million $100 million $20 million
Country B 20% of global users $0 $0 $20 million $4 million
Total $100 million $20 million $120 million $24 million
Source: Tax Foundation calculations.
30 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Such an approach has trade-offs, though. The
exercise could be repeated in different ways,
creating various winners and losers. Countries,
like Country A, that give up some of their tax
revenues under new rules might not choose to
participate in the process, meaning countries
like Country B (which stand to gain the most)
would choose to act alone as in Scenario 2. This
assumes that the streaming business would not
stop providing services in Country B even in the
context of double taxation.
However, if the economic risk of double
taxation through unilateral action is high
enough, both the countries that would gain
tax revenues under the proposal and those
that would lose might be willing to come to an
agreement.
Another challenge that is not provided in the
example is that countries B, C, D, and E may not
agree that the share of global users is the right
metric to use for changing tax liability. That
disagreement could mean that the final formula
includes various weights for users, employees,
assets, sales, or other factors.
This sort of division of taxing rights is referred
to as formulary apportionment and is used in
some countries with sub-central corporate
82 Joann Martens Weiner, “Formulary Apportionment and Group Taxation in the European Union: Insights from the United States and Canada,” European
Commission, March 2005, https://ideas.repec.org/p/tax/taxpap/0008.html.
taxation, as in the United States and Canada.
82
However, even within those systems,
particularly for the U.S., double taxation can
still arise because of different apportionment
factors and formulas used by different states.
How Are Countries Changing their Rules for
Permanent Establishments?
Like Country B in Scenario 2 above, several
countries around the world have explored (and
sometimes implemented) rules that redefine
how they tax digital businesses using new
definitions of permanent establishments.
These have been done outside of a negotiation
with other countries and include Belgium,
India, Israel, Kenya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and
Slovakia.
Each country has taken a slightly different
approach to defining when a digital business
with customers or users inside its borders
will be liable to pay corporate tax on income
connected to those users.
TABLE 8.
Moving from Unilateralism to Multilateralism
Scenario 2: Country A Taxes PE
and Country B Taxes Digital PE
Scenario 3: Digital PE Rules and
No Double Taxation
Attributed
Taxable Income
Tax Liability
Attributed
Taxable Income
Tax Liability
Country A All assets and employees,
50% of global users
$100 million $20 million $50 million $10 million
Country B 20% of global users $20 million $4 million $20 million $4 million
Country C 15% of global users $0 $0 $15 million $3 million
Country D 10% of global users $0 $0 $10 million $2 million
Country E 5% of global users $0 $0 $5 million $1 million
Total $120 million $24 million $100 million $20 million
Source: Tax Foundation calculations.
TAX FOUNDATION | 31
A proposal in Belgium which stalled in 2019
closely reflects a broader European Union
proposal on corporate taxation, with numeric
and monetary thresholds defining when a
business might be liable for corporate tax
in Belgium even if it does not have physical
operations there.
83
India’s approach represents one of the broader
proposals to tax digital businesses using a
significant economic presence standard.
Although clear definitions and thresholds have
not yet been published, the proposal would
apply to revenues from data and software
downloads in India. The policy is scheduled to
go into effect in 2022.
84
Indonesia has a proposal similar to India with
respect to lack of detail on the actual thresholds
but would also tax digital businesses based on
local market activity through digital means.
85
Indonesia also has a fallback policy which
applies to digital businesses even if the digital
permanent establishment definition does not
apply. That fallback policy is the one mentioned
previously that taxes the gross revenues of
electronic transactions.
86
Israel’s policy for establishing significant
economic presence applies to businesses that
are clearly trying to reach customers in Israel
through a website. The policy was established
in 2016 and includes criteria for content tailored
to Israeli customers or users and a positive
correlation between internet usage and Israeli
users.
87
83 Bloomberg Tax, “Bloomberg Tax BEPS Tracker,” BEPS Tracker, n.d., https://www.bloomberglaw.com/product/tax/aqb_chart/5200.
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86 See section “Digital Services Taxes” on the Indonesian Electronic Transactions Tax.
87 Bloomberg Tax, “Bloomberg Tax BEPS Tracker.”
88 KPMG, “Taxation of the Digitalized Economy,” May 22, 2020, https://tax.kpmg.us/content/dam/tax/en/pdfs/2020/digitalized-economy-taxation-
developments-summary.pdf.
89 Ibid.
90 EY, “Saudi Arabian Tax Authorities Introduce Virtual Service PE Concept,” July 30, 2015, https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Saudi_Arabian_
tax_authorities_introduce_Virtual_Service_PE_concept/$FILE/2015G_CM5642_Saudi%20Arabian%20tax%20authorities%20introduce%20Virtual%20
Service%20PE%20concept.pdf.
91 KPMG, “Taxation of the Digitalized Economy.”
92 Isabel Gottlieb, “India’s Taxable Presence Standards Won’t Apply Under Treaties,” Bloomberg Tax, May 9, 2020, https://www.bloomberglaw.com/
product/tax/document/X7CNIKU4000000?jcsearch=BNA%25200000016a9e76dbeea57aff7ecf000000#jcite.
93 EY, “Worldwide Corporate Tax Guide 2019,” accessed May 8, 2020, https://www.ey.com/en_gl/tax-guides/worldwide-corporate-tax-guide-2019.
Kenya has adopted a tax on income accruing
from digital marketplaces; however, the details
are still being developed and may, like the
Indonesian proposal, go with a gross revenue
tax on digital businesses.
88
Nigeria will tax online business profits to the
extent that there is profit that can be attributed
to a significant economic presence in the
country. The definition behind this is expected
to be clarified in future regulations.
89
Saudi Arabia has implemented a regime that
deems a company to have a virtual service
permanent establishment if it has contracts that
last longer than 183 days (although the length
of time can differ depending on the applicable
tax treaty).
90
Slovakia adopted a policy requiring lodging
and transport digital platforms to register as a
permanent establishment. If a business chooses
not to register, a 5 percent withholding tax
applies.
91
Among these proposals, the Indian proposal has
received significant attention by policymakers
and businesses. In 2018, to alleviate potential
concerns of double taxation that would be
caused by the significant economic presence
test for taxation, the joint secretary of tax
planning and legislation at India’s Department
of Revenue made it clear that tax treaties will
override the significant economic presence
test.
92
India has double tax treaties with 45
countries, including all of the G7 countries.
93
32 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
TABLE 9.
Proposals for Digital Permanent Establishment Rules
Jurisdiction Description
Threshold for Digital Permanent
Establishment Current Status
Belgium Follows the EU Directive to
include significant digital
presence thresholds for
determining corporate
income tax liability
1) Revenues associated with digital
services exceed €7 million (US $7.8
million)
2) Number of associated users
exceeds 100,000
3) Number of business contracts
exceeds 3,000
Rejected by Finance and
Budget Committee in
the Belgian Chamber of
Representatives, March
2019
India Deems a permanent
establishment in India for
businesses that otherwise
would not be local providers
of digital goods or services
1) Revenues arising from data or
software downloads in India
2) Systematic and continuous
activity soliciting business in India
through digital means
Adopted, March 2020;
would apply beginning
April, 2022
Indonesia Deems a permanent
establishment based on
significant presence in the
e-commerce economy of
Indonesia
If the permanent
establishment threshold is
not met, then an electronic
transactions tax would apply
1) Consolidated growth revenues
2) Sales amounts in Indonesia, and/
or
3) The size of the active user base in
Indonesia
Adopted, March 2020
Israel Deems a permanent
establishment in Israel for a
nonresident company
1) Online services are provided to
many Israeli customers
2) Substantial number of
transactions with Israeli customers
3) Positive relationship between
online earnings and level of internet
usage of Israeli users
4) Tailored online services to Israeli
users (Hebrew language website or
pricing is in shekels)
Adopted, April 2016
Kenya Charges tax on income
accruing from a digital
marketplace
Regulations forthcoming Adopted, November 2019
Nigeria Deemed permanent
establishment for a broad
range of digital transactions
and services
Significant economic presence Adopted, January 2020
Saudi
Arabia
Virtual Service Permanent
Establishment
1) A nonresident furnishes services
to a person in connection to the
latter’s activity in the Kingdom
2) The services period exceeds a
certain length (183 days is most
common, although the specific
length depends of the applicable tax
treaty)
Implemented, July 2015
Slovakia Digital Permanent
Establishment
Digital platforms facilitating
transport and lodging services
and acting as a marketplace for
such services must register as a
permanent establishment
Those that do not register are
required to withhold tax at 5%
Implemented, January
2018
Source: Bloomberg Tax, “Bloomberg Tax BEPS Tracker”; KPMG, “Taxation of the Digitalized Economy,” Apr. 24, 2020, https://
tax.kpmg.us/content/dam/tax/en/pdfs/2020/digitalized-economy-taxation-developments-summary.pdf.
TAX FOUNDATION | 33
Proposals for Multilateral Coordination
As mentioned above, when countries
unilaterally expand their thresholds for taxing
corporate income, instances of double taxation
can arise. Unless countries clarify, as an Indian
policymaker has done with its significant
economic presence proposal, that tax
treaties will be used to avoid double taxation,
coordination is necessary.
94
There are several broad forums that work to
negotiate changes to international corporate
tax rules including the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), the United Nations Tax Committee,
and the European Union (EU). The Platform
for Collaboration on Tax, which includes the
UN, International Monetary Fund, OECD, and
World Bank, was established in 2016 to foster
collective action on tax matters around the
world.
With respect to digital taxation, significant work
has been done by the EU and the OECD. Model
tax treaty discussions at the UN have also
ventured into digital taxation in recent years.
The G24, a group of developing countries,
has also prepared a comprehensive reform
to international corporate taxation that also
accounts for digital business models.
95
94 Isabel Gottlieb, “India’s Taxable Presence Standards Won’t Apply Under Treaties.”
95 G-24 Working Group on tax policy and international tax cooperation, “Proposal for Addressing Tax Challenges Arising from Digitalisation,” Jan. 17,
2019, 24, https://www.g24.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/G-24_proposal_for_Taxation_of_Digital_Economy_Jan17_Special_Session_2.pdf.
96 European Commission, “Fair Taxation of the Digital Economy,” Taxation and Customs Union - European Commission, Mar. 21, 2018, https://ec.europa.
eu/taxation_customs/business/company-tax/fair-taxation-digital-economy_en.
The EU Proposal on Significant Digital
Presence
In 2018, the EU proposed an approach to
unifying taxation of large businesses among
EU member states that included rules for
identifying a significant digital presence which
would lead to taxable profits in a jurisdiction.
96
The threshold for establishing a significant
digital presence in an EU member state includes
three criteria which apply on an annual basis:
1. €700 million ($784 million) in revenues
2. 100,000 users
3. 3,000 contracts for digital services
A business that meets any one of these criteria
would be liable to pay corporate income taxes
within that EU country.
Attribution of taxable profits of digital
businesses would account for “economically
significant activities” including:
1. Collection, storage, processing, analysis,
deployment, and sale of user-level data
2. Collection, storage, processing, and
display of user-generated content
3. Sale of online advertising space
4. Making available third-party-created
content on a digital marketplace
5. Supply of any digital service not listed in
points 1 through 4
The proposal was paired with a temporary
digital services tax as mentioned previously.
Both proposals have stalled, although they have
34 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
influenced the efforts at the OECD discussed
below.
97
The G24 Proposal for Significant Economic
Presence
Another proposal addressing corporate tax
rules and permanent establishment thresholds
for digital companies has come out of the G24.
98
The proposal was submitted to the OECD as
part of the process that has resulted in a two-
pillar approach, of which Amount A in Pillar 1 is
discussed below.
The G24 proposal follows an option identified in
the OECD’s final report on Action 1 of the Base
Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project for
revising nexus rules using a significant economic
presence test.
99
Following the OECD option in the 2015 report,
the proposal identifies that taxable nexus in a
jurisdiction could be determined based on:
1. Revenue generated on a sustained basis
2. The user base and the associated data
input
3. Volume of digital content
4. Tailored marketing or promotion activities
97 Marcin Szczepański, “Digital Taxation: State of Play and Way Forward” European Parliament Research Service, March 2020, https://www.europarl.
europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/649340/EPRS_BRI(2020)649340_EN.pdf.
98 G-24 Working Group on tax policy and international tax cooperation, “Proposal for Addressing Tax Challenges Arising from Digitalisation,” Jan. 17,
2019, 24.
99 OECD, Addressing the Tax Challenges of the Digital Economy, Action 1 - 2015 Final Report, 2015, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264241046-en.
100 OECD, Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, 2013, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264202719-en.
101 OECD, Addressing the Tax Challenges of the Digital Economy, Action 1 - 2015 Final Report.
102 OECD, Tax Challenges Arising from Digitalisation – Interim Report 2018: Inclusive Framework on BEPS, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264293083-en.
Using these factors, the proposal suggests that
a digital business with no physical activity in a
jurisdiction could be deemed to have significant
economic presence and taxed based on that
presence.
The G24 suggests allocating taxable profits
among countries based on the location of sales,
assets, employees, and users. Reallocating
taxing rights based on factors such as these
would significantly shift where multinationals
pay taxes relative to current practices.
The OECD Pillar 1, Amount A
The G20 and OECD’s BEPS project’s first
action item from 2013 was to address the tax
challenges of the digital economy.
100
While the
final 2015 report on Action 1 analyzed various
options for direct taxation (i.e., changes in
the context of corporate taxes) it made very
few affirmative recommendations on that
subject. Instead, the report suggested that
policies designed to address profit shifting
may be sufficient to also allay concerns about
the ability of digital firms to minimize their tax
burdens, and that targeted digital policies may
not be required once profit shifting had been
adequately addressed.
101
The options for taxing digital companies were
revisited in a 2018 Interim Report, again with
few positive recommendations.
102
However, at
that time several countries had adopted policies
specifically aimed at the digitalization of the
economy, including novel policies like those in
India and Israel mentioned above.
TAX FOUNDATION | 35
Since that report, the OECD has, at the
direction of the G20, been working on a
program of work to “Address the Tax Challenges
Arising from the Digitalization of the Economy.”
The most recent policy document under this
program outlines several policy levers, one
which is significantly more targeted at digital
business models than the others.
103
Amount A under Pillar 1 is designed to establish
a new taxing right for countries and apply to
certain business models. It includes elements
like those adopted in some countries mentioned
previously, although it is more complex.
Amount A has six tests to determine whether
a company would be required to pay tax
in jurisdictions where they do not have a
permanent establishment.
104
First, a revenue threshold applies. Businesses
with global revenues above a certain threshold
(e.g., €750 million, or $840 million) would then
move on to the next test.
The second test is based on a business’s
activities. The activities in scope are automated
digital services and consumer-facing businesses.
Automated digital services mentioned in the
policy document include:
• Online search engines
• Social media platforms
• Online intermediation platforms,
including the operation of online
marketplaces, irrespective of whether
used by businesses or consumers
• Digital content streaming
103 OECD, “Statement by the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS on the Two-Pillar Approach to Address the Tax Challenges Arising from the
Digitalisation of the Economy,” 2020, https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/statement-by-the-oecd-g20-inclusive-framework-on-beps-january-2020.pdf.
104 Ibid.
105 OECD, “Webcast: Update on Economic Analysis and Impact Assessment,” Feb. 13, 2020, https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/webcast-economic-analysis-
impact-assessment-february-2020.htm.
• Online gaming
• Cloud computing services
• Online advertising services
The third test is whether the business activities
generate revenues over a threshold. Even if
the business has global revenues that pass the
first test, the in-scope revenue test provides
an exit ramp if those targeted activities do not
themselves generate sufficient revenue.
The fourth test is based on profitability. The
profit margin of in-scope activities must meet
a certain threshold for Amount A to apply. For
instance, if the profit threshold is 10 percent
and the in-scope activities generate a 15
percent profit margin, the business would meet
the test. In its analysis of Amount A, the OECD
used both a 10 percent profit margin and a 20
percent profit margin as examples.
105
Profits
above the threshold are deemed “residual
profits.”
The fifth test relates to aggregate deemed
residual profits. Even if the in-scope activities
generate a high profit margin, this test identifies
whether the amount of residual profits is
sufficient to cross an aggregate monetary
threshold.
The sixth and final test determines if the
business has sufficient connection to a market
country through digital means despite not
having a local permanent establishment. If all
prior tests are met, deemed residual profits are
allocated to countries where a business’s local
revenue or other factors surpass a country-level
threshold.
Although the six tests can be described easily,
the challenge of implementation is expected to
36 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Amount A Liability
Above Country
Threshold
Below Country
Threshold
Amount A Does
Not Apply
Above
Profitability
Threshold
Below
Threshold
Above Revenue
Threshold
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Below Revenue
Threshold
No ADS or
Consumer-facing
activities
Above Revenue Threshold Below Revenue Threshold
Test 1: Aggregate Revenue
Only businesses with global revenues over a
set threshold are included for Amount A
Test 2: Business Activities
Only Automated Digital Services (ADS) and Consum-
er-facing activities are included in Amount A
Test 3: ADS and Consumer-facing
Revenue Threshold
ADS and Consumer-facing revenues must exceed a set
threshold for Amount A to apply
Test 4: ADS and Consumer-facing
Profitability Threshold
The profit margins of in-scope activities must exceed a
set threshold for Amount A to apply; profits over this
threshold are deemed "residual profits"
Test 5: Aggregate Residual Profits Test
Profits above the profitability threshold should be
aggregated to determine if the amount of residual
profits meets a monetary threshold for Amount A
Test 6: Nexus Test for New
Country Liability
Deemed residual profits are allocated for taxation
in countries where the business passes a local
threshold—e.g., local revenue or other factors
Automated Digital
Services (ADS) or
Consumer-facing
activities
Below Aggregate
Residual
Profits
Threshold
Above Aggregate
Residual
Profits Threshold
ADS or
Consumer-
facing
activities
Other
activities and
carved-out
activities
Mixed Activities
Amount A Includes Six Tests to Determine Tax Liability
Source: OECD, “Statement by the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS on the Two-Pillar Approach to Address the Tax Challenges Arising from
the Digitalisation of the Economy,” 2020, https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/statement-by-the-oecd-g20-inclusive-framework-on-beps-january-2020.
pdf.
TAX FOUNDATION | 37
be immense. If implemented, Amount A would
result in a tax on profits of digital companies
even where there is not a local permanent
establishment and require significant new
coordination, and perhaps new institutions, to
minimize tax disputes and ensure that no more
than 100 percent of taxable profits are taxed
for any given business.
Splitting the Pie for the Sake of Digital Taxation
Scenario 3 in the examples provided at the
beginning of this section shows that changes
in rules that impact where a business pays
taxes have impacts for individual countries.
In a similar vein, the OECD is studying which
countries might gain or lose tax revenue under
Amount A. In an initial analysis using 2016
data, the OECD explores potential scenarios
that would lead to gains in high-, middle-, and
low-income countries, while investment hubs
(those countries with inward Foreign Direct
Investment of more than 150% of GDP) would
lose revenues.
106
106 Ibid.
Overall, the analysis shows that global tax
revenues would increase slightly as more
income is taxed in relatively higher tax
jurisdictions.
Pillar 1, Amount A would decrease corporate tax revenues in
Investment Hubs
Note: Illustrave scenarios of Pillar 1 (Amount A only), where residual profit is defined with a 10% or 20% threshold on profit-before-tax to turnover,
assuming a 20% reallocaon of residual profit to market jurisdicons, with commodies and financial sectors excluded from scope. High, middle and
low income jurisdicons are defined based on the World Bank classificaon. Investment hubs are jurisdicons with inward FDI above 150% of GDP.
Source: OECD, "Webcast: Update on Economic Analysis and Impact Assessment."
-5% -4% -3% -2% -1% 0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5%
High Income
Middle Income
Low Income
Investment Hubs
Global Effect
10%
20%
Illustrave Assumpon on Residual Profit Threshold (Based on Profit-Before-Tax to Turnover Rao):
38 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Best Practices in Digital Corporate
Taxation
Singling out the digital economy through
specific means using corporate tax is fraught
with challenges. Any rules change in this policy
area should be done through a multilateral
process to avoid creating different standards
that result in double taxation. However, among
the unilateral efforts, there are some key points
that are valuable.
The Israeli approach clearly identifies links
between a digital platform and the local
economy and represents a reasonable attempt
to identify a digital permanent establishment.
Additionally, the policy communication from
India that double-tax treaties would supersede
the tax implications of a significant economic
presence helps to mitigate some of the tax
challenges of the Indian approach.
The proposals by multilateral forums generally
suffer more from political challenges than
policy challenges. However, Amount A in Pillar
1, which specifically targets automated digital
services and consumer-facing businesses, would
create an unlevel playing field in tax compliance
costs for those targeted businesses relative to
industries that are out of scope. While part of
the motivation for the proposal is to remedy
current tax policy imbalances, Amount A would
create additional ones.
Both at the country level and at the
international level, corporate tax policies
should be designed without specific business
models in mind, otherwise real distortions could
arise. The extent to which adjusting nexus
rules specifically requires new definitions for
the digital era; countries should provide clear
guidance about when a virtual permanent
establishment arises.
Deeming virtual permanent establishments
unilaterally can create both uncertainty and
double taxation.
TAX FOUNDATION | 39
Gross-based Withholding Taxes
on Digital Services
Another tax policy tool that has been
customized for the digital economy is gross-
based withholding taxes. Withholding taxes are
often used to tax cross-border transactions,
especially between countries that share taxing
rights under a tax treaty. Cross-border interest
payments, dividends, and royalties commonly
have their own applicable withholding tax rates.
Recent activity (again both unilateral and
multilateral) has increased the scope for
royalties taxation to include digital services.
This has been done by explicitly expanding the
definition of royalties to, in some cases, include
payments for software.
These policies require a business in Country A
to pay taxes in Country B at a set rate based
on the gross amount of a transaction. For
example, a business in Country A provides
a software service to a client in Country B.
Country B applies a 5 percent withholding tax
on payments for software services to foreign
businesses. When the client in Country B
makes a payment to the business in Country
A, 5 percent of that payment is required to be
withheld for tax purposes.
In many cases, bilateral tax treaties significantly
reduce or eliminate cross-border withholding
taxes. When a withholding tax does apply,
businesses can file a tax return to reconcile
the difference between taxes paid on a gross
basis relative to actual income. However, if the
withholding tax applies when there is no income
attributable to the withholding country (under
current practices), filing an income tax return is
less useful.
In a way, some governments use gross-based
withholding taxes on digital businesses to
substitute for corporate or consumption taxes.
Because digital businesses are less likely to
have local permanent establishments in all
countries where they have sales, the gross
withholding tax is used in place of defining a
virtual permanent establishment and requiring a
foreign company to collect and remit VAT or pay
corporate income tax.
However, taxing gross revenues leads to higher
marginal tax rates on lower margin businesses
or transactions. This makes gross-based
withholding taxes clearly inferior, from an
economic point of view, to taxing net income or
final consumption.
Despite that, there are also administrative and
enforcement challenges to defining virtual
permanent establishments and applying VAT to
remote sales. Some developing countries simply
face a trade-off between gaining some revenue
through a withholding tax regime (regardless of
economic efficiency) and building policies for
digital VAT or virtual permanent establishments.
The more that countries opt for gross-based
withholding taxes, however, the less efficient
and transparent taxation of digital companies
becomes.
Individual Country Approaches to
Withholding Taxes on Digital Services
Gross-based withholding taxes on digital
services have become more common in
recent years with several small countries
implementing policies that tax the gross amount
of transactions in related digital services.
These policies are like the digital services taxes
mentioned previously, although the withholding
taxes apply without regard to the size of a
business and have a much broader scope.
Some examples include Pakistan, Peru,
Thailand, Turkey, and Uruguay. The withholding
tax rates range from 5 percent in Pakistan and
Thailand to 30 percent in Peru.
40 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
UN Model Treaty and Software
A multilateral approach to gross-based
withholding taxes on digital services has been
occurring at the UN Tax Committee. In 2018,
the committee released an amended model
tax treaty to provide for withholding taxes on
technical services income.
107
Technical services
include those of a “managerial, technical, or
consultancy nature.”
108
Prior to this change, the UN model treaty
allowed for countries to share taxing rights
over income from royalties (the rights to use a
licensed product or service). For example, if a
business in Country A licenses a product for use
by a customer in Country B and the business
does not have a permanent establishment in
Country B, the UN model tax treaty would
let both Country A and Country B tax some
107 Julie Martin, “UN Releases Updated Model Tax Treaty Adding New Technical Services Fees Article,” MNE Tax, May 22, 2018, https://mnetax.com/
un-releases-updated-model-tax-treaty-adding-new-technical-service-fees-article-27765.
108 “Model Treaties Full Text, UN Model Treaty (2017),” accessed May 14, 2020, https://www.bloomberglaw.com/product/tax/document/
XM671APC#treaty-article-royalties.
109 Both the OECD and the UN have model tax treaties, but they differ specifically on the taxation of services. See Michael Lennard, “The UN Model Tax
Convention as Compared with the OECD Model Tax Convention – Current Points of Difference and Recent Developments,” n.d., 8.
110 UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters, “Taxation of Software Payments as Royalties,” UN, Oct. 4, 2018, https://www.
un.org/development/desa/financing/document/taxation-software-payments-royalties-ec182018crp9.
portion of the related royalty income. Individual
bilateral treaties can differ from the UN model,
but the model is influential on many countries’
interpretation or drafting of tax treaties.
109
Other tax treaty models (e.g., the OECD model
and the U.S. model) only allow for Country A to
tax the income in that scenario.
The amended UN model treaty ushered in
a new opportunity for countries to impose
withholding taxes related to income generated
from services in their jurisdiction in the absence
of a local permanent establishment. The effort
has been followed closely by discussions to
treat software-related payments as royalties.
110
TABLE 10.
Examples of Gross-Based Withholding Taxes on Digital Services
Jurisdiction Policy Current Status
Pakistan 5% withholding tax on offshore digital services including online
advertising, designing, creating, hosting, or maintenance of
websites, providing any facility or service for uploading, storing or
distribution of digital content, online collection or processing of
data related to users in Pakistan, any facility for online sale of goods
or services, or any other online facility
Implemented, July 2018
Peru 30% withholding tax on digital services (services provided or
accessed via the internet) provided by non-residents to Peruvian
residents and used in Peru.
Implemented, March 2014
Thailand 5% withholding tax on e-commerce supplies of goods and services
in the country, including online advertising, gaming, shopping, and
others; the financial institution facilitating the transaction would be
responsible to withhold and remit the tax
Proposed, May 2019
Turkey 15% withholding tax on digital advertising payments made to
services providers and intermediaries
Implemented, January 2019
Uruguay 12% withholding tax levied on payments made for digital services
supplied by nonresidents to customers located in Uruguay
Implemented, July 2018
Source: KPMG, “Taxation of the Digitalized Economy,” May 15, 2020, https://tax.kpmg.us/content/dam/tax/en/pdfs/2020/
digitalized-economy-taxation-developments-summary.pdf; Deloitte, “Uruguay Highlights 2019,” 2019, https://www2.deloitte.
com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Tax/dttl-tax-uruguayhighlights-2019.pdf; Orbitax, “Clarification on Digital
Services Subject to Withholding Tax in Peru — Orbitax News,” https://www.orbitax.com/news/archive.php/Clarification-on-
Digital-Servi-5334.
TAX FOUNDATION | 41
Both the technical services amendment and the
proposal to incorporate software income into
the definition of royalties would allow countries
to apply gross-based taxes on software
payments.
111
Gross-based taxation is designed to ignore net
income calculations and, because of this, can
result in high marginal tax rates. Broadening
the scope of gross-based withholding taxes
increases the likelihood that digital businesses
will get caught by taxes in countries where they
do not have permanent establishments and
with little opportunity to reconcile gross-based
taxation with their net income.
111 While some existing tax treaties, like the tax treaties between France and Canada and France and Japan, refer to software in the definitions of
royalties, neither treaty provides for withholding taxes on software payments. In the case of the France-Canada treaty, software is exempt from
the 10 percent withholding tax rate on royalties. In the case of the France-Japan treaty, the withholding tax rate for royalties is 0 percent. See
Bloomberg Tax, “International Withholding Tax,” accessed May 14, 2020, https://www.bloomberglaw.com/product/tax/bbna/chart/3/10092/
aa4242cf6c76b9714d5d197d830ec00c.
Conclusion
In recent years, governments around the world
have begun to adapt their tax systems to
capture the digitalization of the economy. These
efforts have led to changes in consumption
taxes and corporate taxation. To ensure
neutrality between digital and non-digital
businesses, many countries have extended their
VATs/GSTs to include digital services.
Most large digital businesses are multinational
corporations, generating revenue streams from
countries across the world. Concerns have been
raised that the current international corporate
tax system—with its traditional permanent
establishment rules—does not properly capture
these novel business models. This has led us
to the ongoing OECD negotiations among
more than 130 countries to adapt the existing
international tax rules.
A significant number of countries has adopted
unilateral tax measures targeted at digital
businesses, including digital services taxes,
gross-based withholding taxes, and digital
permanent establishments. However, in the
absence of a multilateral coordination, these
targeted unilateral tax policies are likely to
intersect or contradict one another, resulting in
uncertainty and double taxation.
The outcome of the digital tax debate will
likely shape domestic and international
taxation for decades to come. Designing these
policies based on sound principles—simplicity,
transparency, neutrality, and stability—will
be essential in ensuring they can withstand
challenges arising in the rapidly changing
economic and technological environment of the
21
st
century.
42 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
APPENDIX TABLE 1.
Announced, Proposed, and Implemented Digital Services Taxes around the World,
as of May 2020
Country
Tax
Rate Scope
Global
Revenue
Threshold
Domestic
Revenue
Threshold Status
Austria
(AT)
5% Online advertising €750 million
(US $840
million)
€25 million
($28 million)
Implemented (Effective from January
2020)
Belgium
(BE)
3% Selling of user data €750 million
($840 million)
€50 million
in the EU
($56 million)
Belgium proposed a DST in January
2019. However, the proposal
was rejected in March 2019.
Brazil (BR) 1%-
5%
• Targeted online
advertising
• Use of digital
interfaces
• Transmission of
user data generated
from using a digital
interface
R$3 billion
($760 million)
R$100 million
($25 million)
Proposed
Canada
(CA)
3% • Targeted online
advertising
• Digital
intermediation
services
C$1 billion
($754 million)
C$40 million
($30 million)
Announced/Shows Intentions (Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau released a
campaign proposal outlining a DST)
Czech
Republic
(CZ)
7% • Targeted
advertising
• Use of multilateral
digital interfaces
• Provision of user
data
(additional
thresholds apply)
€750 million
($840 million)
CZK 100
million ($4
million)
Proposed (Delayed until 2021 to wait
for agreement at the OECD level;
there have been discussions to lower
the proposed tax rate)
France (FR) 3% • Provision of a
digital interface
• Advertising
services based on
users’ data
€750 million
($840 million)
€25 million
($28 million)
Implemented (Retroactively applicable
as of January 1, 2019; France has
agreed to suspend the collection
of the DST until December 2020 in
exchange for the U.S. agreeing to hold
off on retaliatory tariffs on French
goods)
Hungary
(HU)
7.5% Advertising revenue HUF 100
million
($344,000)
N/A Implemented (As a temporary
measure, the advertisement tax rate
has been reduced to 0%, effective
from July 1, 2019 through December
31, 2022)
India (IN) 6%
and
2%
• Online advertising
services (6%)
• E-commerce
operators (2%)
- Rs. 2 crores
($284,000)
Implemented (India introduced its
“equalisation levy” in 2016, a 6
percent tax on gross revenues from
online advertising services provided
by nonresident businesses; as of April
2020, the equalisation levy expanded
to apply a 2 percent tax on revenues
of nonresident e-commerce operators
that are not subject to the already
existing 6 percent equalisation levy)
Indonesia
(ID)
TBA TBA TBA TBA Implemented (So-called “Electronic
Transaction Tax” effective from March
2020; imposed on e-commerce sales
when the digital PE cannot be applied
due to the provision of a tax treaty;
details TBA)
Israel (IL) 3%-
5%
TBA TBA TBA Announced/Shows Intentions
(Modeled after the French DST)
TAX FOUNDATION | 43
Italy (IT) 3% • Advertising on a
digital interface
• Multilateral digital
interface that
allows users to
buy/sell goods and
services
• Transmission of
user data generated
from using a digital
interface
€750 million
($840 million)
€5.5 million
($6 million)
Implemented (Effective from January
2020)
Kenya (KE) 1.5% • Digital
marketplaces
TBA TBA Proposed (Expected implementation
in 2021)
Latvia (LV) - - - - Announced/Shows Intentions (The
Latvian government commissioned a
study to determine the increase of tax
revenue based on the assumption that
the country levies a 3% DST)
New
Zealand
(NZ)
2%-
3%
• Intermediation
platforms
• Social media
platforms
• Content sharing
sites
• Search engines and
the sale of user
data
€750 million
($840 million)
NZ$3.5
million
(US$2.3
million)
Announced/Shows Intentions (In June
2019, the New Zealand government
released a discussion document on the
design of a possible DST)
Norway
(NO)
- - - - Announced/Shows Intentions (Norway
plans to introduce a unilateral measure
in 2021 if the OECD does not reach a
consensus solution in 2020)
Poland (PL) 1.5% Online streaming
services
- - Proposed
Slovakia
(SK)
- - - - Proposed (The Ministry of Finance
opened a consultation on a proposal
to introduce a DST on revenue of
nonresidents from provision of
services such as advertising, online
platforms, and sale of user data;
however, there were no further steps
taken and none of the political parties
have put forward digital tax as their
priority agenda)
Slovenia
(SI)
- - - - Announced/Shows Intentions (The
Ministry of Finance announced a
government proposal to submit a
draft bill to the National Assembly
introducing a digital services tax by
April 1, 2020; however, there has been
no development so far)
Spain (ES) 3% • Online advertising
services
• Sale of online
advertising
• Sale of user data
€750 million
($840 million)
€3 million
($3 million)
Proposed (The Spanish Parliament
rejected the government’s proposed
budget bill for 2019, which included
the digital services tax; however,
a new draft law for a DST was
introduced this year)
APPENDIX TABLE 1, CONTINUED.
Announced, Proposed, and Implemented Digital Services Taxes around the World,
as of May 2020
Country
Tax
Rate Scope
Global
Revenue
Threshold
Domestic
Revenue
Threshold Status
44 | DIGITAL TAXATION AROUND THE WORLD
Tunisia
(TN)
3% Sale of computer
applications and
digital services
by nonresident
companies
TBA TBA Implemented (Effective from January
2020; a decree to be issued will set
out detailed requirements)
Turkey
(TR)
7.5% Online services
including
advertisements, sales
of content, and paid
services on social
media websites
€750 million
($840 million)
TRY 20
million ($4
million)
Implemented (Effective from March
2020; the president can reduce the
DST rate downward to 1% or increase
it upward to 15%)
United
Kingdom
(GB)
2% • Social media
platforms
• Internet search
engine
• Online marketplace
£500 million
($638 million)
£25 million
($32 million)
Implemented (The UK government
stated in its Finance Bill 2020 that the
DST would go into effect as of April 1,
2020; the Finance Bill is currently in
the Parliament and is expected to be
enacted this summer)
Source: KPMG, “Taxation of the Digitalized Economy,” May 15, 2020, https://tax.kpmg.us/content/dam/tax/en/pdfs/2020/
digitalized-economy-taxation-developments-summary.pdf.
APPENDIX TABLE 1, CONTINUED.
Announced, Proposed, and Implemented Digital Services Taxes around the World,
as of May 2020
Country
Tax
Rate Scope
Global
Revenue
Threshold
Domestic
Revenue
Threshold Status
TAX FOUNDATION | 45
APPENDIX TABLE 2.
Patent Box Regimes in Europe and in OECD Countries, 2020
Qualifying IP Assets
Tax Rate Under
Patent Box Regime
Statutory Corporate
Income Tax RatePatents Software Other (a.)
Andorra
✓ ✓
2% 10%
Belgium
✓ ✓
4.44% 25%
Cyprus
✓ ✓ ✓
2.5% 12.5%
France
✓ ✓
10% 32.02%
Hungary (b.)
✓ ✓
0% or 4.5% 9%
Ireland
✓ ✓ ✓
6.25% 12.5%
Israel
✓ ✓ ✓
6% to 12% 23%
Italy (c.)
✓ ✓
13.95% 27.81%
Korea
✓ ✓
5% to 18.75% 25%
Lithuania
✓ ✓
5% 15%
Luxembourg
✓ ✓
5.2% 24.94%
Malta
✓ ✓ ✓
Minimum of 1.75%
(deduction of up to
95% of net income)
35%
Netherlands
✓ ✓ ✓
7% 25%
Poland
✓ ✓
5% 19%
Portugal
✓
10.5% 32%
San Marino (d.)
✓ ✓
0% or 8.5% 17%
Slovakia
✓ ✓
10.5% 21%
Spain - federal (e.)
✓ ✓
10% 25%
Spain - Basque Country
✓ ✓
7.2% 24%
Spain - Navarra
✓ ✓
8.4% 28%
Switzerland (f.)
✓
Tax base reduction of
up to 90% on patent
income
14.45%
(cantonal level)
Turkey (g.)
✓
11% 22%
United Kingdom
✓
10% 19%
(a.) “Other” refers to IP assets that are non-obvious, useful, and novel. These can only be applied to small and medium-size
businesses.
(b.) Hungary’s patent box regime applies a zero percent rate in the case of capital gains of reported qualifying IP and 4.5
percent in the case of benefits related to royalty income.
(c.) Italy has a federal corporate income tax (IRES) of 24 percent and a regional production tax (IRAP) of 3.9 percent, thus a
combined statutory rate of 27.9 percent. Italy’s patent box regime reduces both tax rates by 50 percent, leading to a tax
rate of 13.95 percent on IP income.
(d.) San Marino has three IP regimes. The “New companies regime provided by art. 73, law no. 166/2013” grants a tax rate of
8.5 percent. The “Regime for high-tech start-up companies under law no. 71/2013 and delegated decree no. 116/2014”
and the “IP regime” both grant tax rates of 0 percent. All three apply to patents and software.
(e.) The Spanish regions “Basque Country” and “Navarra” have separate IP regimes.
(f.) Switzerland introduced a patent box regime that went into effect in 2020 at the cantonal level. The regime will provide a
maximum tax base reduction of 90 percent on income from patents and similar rights developed in Switzerland. It applies
in all cantons, but cantons can opt for a lower reduction.
(g.) Turkey has a second IP regime which allows for a full tax deduction (0 percent effective tax rate) of qualified IP income
resulting from R&D activities that were undertaken in Turkish Technology Development Zones.
Note: Liechtenstein has abolished its patent box regime because it did not comply with the OECD’s Modified Nexus Approach.
Sources: OECD, “Dataset Intellectual Property Regimes”; Deloitte, “The Cyprus IP regime”; PwC, “French Finance Act for
2019”; Ireland’s Office of the Revenue Commissioners, “Guidance Notes on the Knowledge Development Box”; EY, “New
Israeli Innovation Box Regime: An update and review of key features”; and Baker McKenzie, “Swiss Voters Adopt Federal Act
on Tax Reform and AVS Financing.”
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