Taxing the Digital Economy: Overview of Global Indirect Tax Challenges

KPMG LLP invites you to join us for a discussion on the global indirect tax challenges in the digital economy.

What are the developments?

While the OECD is working on new international tax rules to reallocate taxing rights of income taxes among jurisdictions, the indirect tax world has already started modernizing its tax rules to adapt them to the challenges of the digital economy. Today, based on guidelines published by the OECD in 2015, more than 60 jurisdictions have adopted specific value added tax (VAT) / goods and services tax (GST) rules ensuring the taxation of digital services in the country of consumption by mainly requiring foreign vendors to register for, collect, and remit VAT/GST on sales made to final consumers. Given the expansion of these rules in the last five years, it is likely that even more countries will implement similar rules in the upcoming years. Besides, jurisdictions that have already implemented such rules are now moving to the enforcement phase and/or look into ensuring that e-commerce transactions in goods are effectively taxed where the consumption occurs. As the country specific implementation of these rules aimed at the digital economy are not harmonized, businesses selling remotely goods and digital services face a patchwork of requirements that are often difficult to follow.

KPMG professionals who focus on global indirect taxes will address:

• Key VAT/GST considerations for providers of digital services;
• Changes to VAT/GST rules on e-commerce transactions;
• How these rules differ from the digital services taxes that are proposed by some countries; and
• Importance for US businesses to comply with these rules.

Who will be affected by the changes?

Businesses selling goods or digital services remotely to customers established outside the United States.