Challenges of corporate income tax in the era of the digital economy

Abstract

Almost 240 years have passed since Adam Smith became famous defending free trade. He probably would have been proud to know that his economic fundamentals are so applicable today, even though a new economic paradigm has arisen: the digital economy, based on the Internet and new digital technologies, which is transforming the way we interact, consume and do business. New digital based firms are growing faster and apparently, the digital economy has enormously contributed to the economy. Nonetheless, the economic digitalisation is negatively pressuring the current international tax frameworks, concretely to the corporate income tax scheme which was originally designed for physically based businesses. These rules have become obsolete in assigning the tax authority of digital based firm’s profits because of the difficulty to identify and to locate its business value generation, which conceives a tax mismatch versus traditional businesses. Therefore, digitalized multinational enterprises are able to reduce their tax burden by shifting profits to low tax jurisdictions with tax avoidance strategies, negatively impacting on public budgets and social fairness. Accordingly, citizens, policy makers and business managers are calling for solutions, but reaching a coordinated and global agreement is likely to be challenging because it is an international problem tax with many opposed interests. Despite this, the digital economy could offer a great many opportunities for further economic development and therefore, it could bring a higher total surplus. With this in mind, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the European Union have put all hands on deck, looking to improve international tax frameworks and to set new rules for such economic revolution due to ensure a fair tax contribution among all economic agents.