scholarly journals Digital Service Taxes and Their Application

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megersa Kelbesa

Many developing economies have seen a rise in e-commerce activity within their borders, and a decline in income from traditional industries as a result of COVID-19, meaning the digital economy offers a potentially unexploited source of tax revenue. . As a result, more developing countries may soon begin adopting some sort of digital tax. The economic activities which may be subject to the Digital Services Tax (DST) may vary from country to country. It will, therefore, be necessary for businesses operating in multiple jurisdictions across developing countries to keep up with the changes in digital taxes. Before implementing a DST scheme, developing countries are advised to perform an in-depth cost-benefit analysis and due considerations. Some developing (and several developed) countries have already unilaterally implemented a “provisional” DST system. Other developing countries are on the process of implementing DST or have simply announced that they will implement a DST soon. Although most of the countries so far actively working on DST (are rich countries, a growing list of developing countries are joining the process. Some examples include the following: Malaysia, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Argentina and, Chile. It is important to mention that the literature on DST is very limited – although growing, and the evidence base around the economic impacts is particularly scarce. This is partly due to the quite recent nature of DST implementation. The evidence is even scarcer for developing countries – Due to these limitations, this rapid evidence review looks at different types of available literature – including reports and blogs issued by international financial institutions and development agencies. The rest of the report will give an overview of key proposed approaches to tax the digital economy, provide a very brief account of the economic impact of DST, provide a brief mapping of the implementation of digital service taxes in developing countries, provide a brief description of each DST system and about the economic impact of the DST, finally a brief account or attributes of a “good” DST system.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Euston Quah ◽  
Tsiat Siong Tan ◽  
Zach J.L. Lee

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 317-334
Author(s):  
Tim Josling

The demand for quantitative assessments of the impacts of food and agricultural policies has grown steadily in the past four decades. From the application of social cost-benefit analysis to investments in developing countries in the 1970s to the use of increasingly sophisticated general equilibrium models today, the menu of available techniques for policy assessment has expanded rapidly. In addition, both partial and general equilibrium models have been developed to analyze world markets for agricultural commodities and the effects of government policies on such markets. Alongside the modeling of markets and the quantitative impact of policies, several indicators have been developed that build on trade policy measures, including effective protection and tariff equivalents. One example is the producer subsidy equivalent. This has been used by the OECD to estimate the level of support provided by government policies to the agricultural sector. The indicators have more recently been applied to developing countries as a form of benchmarking to give a snapshot of the transfers among stakeholders inherent in such policies.


Author(s):  
Donald Getz

Concepts for understanding economic impacts, and valid methods of assessment are well developed. In fact, there is so much information available that this is the largest chapter in the book – not the most important. A thorough and accessible reference on the subject is the book Tourism Economics and Policy by Dwyer, Forsyth and Dwyer (2010) as it contains a full chapter on events. Event Tourism (Getz, 2013) also covers economic impact assessment in detail. There have been well-documented problems with economic impact assessments for tourism and events (Matheson, 2002; Matheson and Baade, 2003; Crompton and McKay, 2004; Tyrell & Ismail, 2005; Crompton, 2006; Davies et al., 2013), pertaining to both how they are done and the purposes they serve. Dwyer and Jago (2014, p.130) identified three main types of criticisms associated with the assessment of the economic impacts of events, commencing with the exaggeration of benefits owing to either deliberate manipulation or faulty methods. Attention has often focused on the use of Input-Output tables to formulate ‘multipliers’, a practice which leads to exaggerated benefits, with a number of scholars preferring Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling. Most fundamental is the frequent failure to consider all costs and benefits, leading to calls for more comprehensive cost-benefit analysis (CBA). Most economic IAs have utilized only a narrow range of metrics, but even more unfortunate is the continued reliance on multipliers and econometric models, as these ‘black-box’ approaches tend to exaggerate imputed benefits while ignoring costs and equity issues. This is certainly not in keeping with principles of social responsibility and sustainability.


Author(s):  
Jacques Bughin

This chapter draws on findings from a unique global survey to analyze how Enterprise 2.0 has been adopted in developing economies and how much it contributes to individual company performance. Two results stand out. While the use of social technologies by companies is gaining momentum, adoption remains patchy and still lags in developed countries. Nevertheless, clear evidence exists that Enterprise 2.0 in developing countries, when used at scale, lifts company performance, especially when integrated into workflows and when companies redefine their processes and operating models through social technologies.


Author(s):  
Saundarjya Borbora ◽  
Mrinal Kanti Dutta

Economic development and information and communication technology (ICT) are found to move together in the present day era of globalization. ICT can contribute significantly in economic development of a region by providing adequate information at the minimum of time and cost, thereby enhancing productivity in different sectors of an economy. This fact is substantiated by several studies (Kraemer & Dedrick, 2001; Pohjola, 2001). Some country specific studies like that of Singapore (Wong, 2001) also highlighted similar results. ICT diffusion in the world has been quite rapid since the mid 1990s. While the developed countries have benefited substantially from the ICT growth, the developing countries could not reap similar benefits out of it which has resulted in emergence of a digital divide across the countries (Economist, 2000; Nkrumah, 2000; Norris, 2001). This divide is noticed not only across countries but also within a country and this is more prominent in developing economies like India. ICT diffusion is another area which needs more attention in India as it will lead to ICT access and application of ICT in real sectors to increase productivity and output. During the past one decade India has made rapid advances in ICT growth as reflected in the increase in the number of Internet connections and users. The growth of Internet connections and users in the country is shown in Table 1.


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