The current tax system is based on and conforms to the traditional mode of production and trade. The emergence of electronic commerce, which is different from traditional commerce, makes some provisions of the current tax system inapplicable or not fully applicable to electronic commerce, and involves a series of issues related to tax system and tax collection and management, such as international tax relations and domestic fiscal revenue.
I. International research and formulation of e-commerce tax policies
At present, countries (mainly the United States, Japan, the European Union and other countries and regions with developed e-commerce) and international organizations have conducted in-depth and extensive discussions and studies on the taxation of productive commerce. A few countries have promulgated some laws and regulations on e-commerce taxation, and some international organizations (such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-OECD) have formed a framework agreement on e-commerce taxation policy and established some principles. Specifically, the tax issues involved in e-commerce are mainly: whether to implement tax incentives for e-commerce, whether to levy new taxes on e-commerce, and how to levy taxes on e-commerce.
1 Whether to implement tax incentives for e-commerce. This question was first put forward by the United States. The United States is the country with the earliest application and the highest penetration rate of e-commerce. So far, the United States has promulgated a series of tax laws and regulations on e-commerce, the main point of which is: tax exemption for intangible products (such as electronic publications, software, etc.). ) trade from tariffs through the internet; Do not collect (or call it deferred collection) domestic "Internet access tax". After the United States reached a tariff exemption agreement for e-commerce, 1998, relying on its leading position in the field of e-commerce, the United States signed an agreement with members of the World Trade Organization 132 to maintain the tariff status of the Internet for at least one year; 1999, the United States urges members of the World Trade Organization to adopt an agreement to extend the zero-tariff status of the Internet for another year.
However, the United States has not reached a consensus on whether to temporarily exempt domestic e-commerce taxes (mainly sales taxes). At present, there are two camps in the United States around the issue of taxing domestic e-commerce. Both sides hold their own opinions: some federal government officials and members of Congress are planning to introduce a bill to prohibit federal, state and local governments from taxing the Internet forever (not temporarily). According to the analysis, the reason why this bill was put forward is that direct tax (income tax) is the main part of the federal government's fiscal revenue (accounting for more than 90% of the total fiscal revenue), and the exemption of tax on e-commerce transactions has little impact on the federal government's fiscal revenue. (Although e-commerce is developing very rapidly in the United States, the online transaction volume of 1999 is about 20 billion yuan, accounting for only 1 of the whole retail industry. However, some state and local government officials and members of Congress are skeptical about this and propose to tax e-commerce and other long-distance sales (such as mail order, telephone and TV sales) (most state and local governments and their legislatures in the United States support this proposal). The reasons are as follows: first, the exemption of e-commerce tax (mainly sales tax) will endanger the fiscal revenue of the state and local governments 14 (the proportion of indirect taxes such as sales tax in the fiscal revenue of the state and local governments). Second, the exemption of e-commerce tax will make traditional businesses in an unequal competition state, which violates the principles of "neutrality" and "fairness" of taxation. According to the newspaper, in 2000, the governments of some states, such as Michigan and North Carolina, stipulated that taxpayers should list their online expenditures when filling in the income tax form of 1999, so as to pay local sales tax. Florida and other states are already planning similar practices. In addition to the above two opposing views, some members of Congress put forward a compromise plan, that is, extending the tax exemption period of e-commerce from three years to five years, so as to give the US government enough time to study and formulate tax policies suitable for various businesses and coordinate the relationship between the federal government and state and local governments. All kinds of statements are inconclusive in the United States.
The United States has formulated preferential tax policies for e-commerce. First, avoid unnecessary tax and tax control from adversely affecting e-commerce and accelerate the development of e-commerce in the United States (as for the part of state and local governments' fiscal revenue reduced due to exemption from e-commerce tax, it can be made up by the federal government's transfer payment); The second is to pave the way for American companies to seize the international market. At present, American enterprises account for about two-thirds of the global network companies engaged in e-commerce; The United States accounts for the main share of the world's electronic and digital products transactions (only 65,438+0,997, and the electronic software exported by the United States reaches 50 billion US dollars). If the tariffs on electronic and digital products are exempted, American enterprises can cross the "tariff barriers" and drive straight into other countries to make profits; Third, the relevant laws in the United States (the US federal tax law is inconsistent with the state and local government tax laws, and the tax laws between States are also inconsistent) and the means of collection and management are still not unified and perfect, so it is difficult to implement fair and effective supervision of e-commerce. Therefore, the US government has formulated and adhered to the implementation of preferential tax policies for e-commerce. As a world economic power and the most developed country in e-commerce, the trend of studying and formulating e-commerce tax policies in the United States will have an important impact on studying and formulating e-commerce tax policies in various countries and internationally.
1In June, 1998, the EU member states slightly inferior to the United States in the scale of e-commerce development published the Report on Protecting Value-added Tax Revenue and Promoting the Development of E-commerce, and reached an agreement with the United States on exempting tariffs on e-commerce (selling electronic digital products on the Internet). However, the European Union also forced the United States to agree to levy indirect tax (value-added tax) on digital products sold through the Internet, and insisted on levying value-added tax (existing tax) on e-commerce transactions of EU member States to protect the interests of its member States.
In developing countries, e-commerce has just started. Developing countries attach great importance to the research and formulation of international e-commerce tax policies. Most developing countries hope and advocate imposing tariffs on electronic commerce (electronic digital products), thus setting up barriers to protect national industries and safeguard national rights and interests.
2 whether to levy a new tax on e-commerce. 1998, some governments and some professionals proposed at the UN General Assembly that a new "BIT (unit name of BIT electronic information flow) tax should be levied in addition to the e-commerce transaction itself. Once this proposal was put forward, it was opposed by the United States and the European Union: the United States government has repeatedly reported that the international tax system should not hinder the development of e-commerce and should not levy new taxes on e-commerce (such as "bit tax"); 1998, the European union passed a resolution, agreeing in principle not to levy new taxes on e-commerce, emphasizing that the current tax law should be applied to e-commerce fairly; OECD published the report "E-commerce: Tax Framework Conditions" in 1998. Although there is no clear opposition to the "bit tax", it is emphasized that all countries should implement a fair and predictable tax system to create a good tax environment for the development of e-commerce. At present, the opinions of countries around the world on whether to levy a new tax on e-commerce have tended to be consistent, that is, they do not agree to levy a "bit tax".
In fact, there are many problems in collecting "bit tax" in e-commerce: can we distinguish whether there are business activities according to the flow of electronic information (at present, the Internet provides some free services)? Can you distinguish the prices of goods and services? Can you distinguish between income and operation? The answer is that it is impossible to distinguish the above problems according to the flow of electronic information. What's more, a network company has a large flow of electronic information, which means that the company has used communication lines for a long time and paid a lot of fees for using communication lines, and taxes have been included in the fees. A few days before the author wrote this article (February 7, 2000), it was reported that the "Yahoo website" in the United States was attacked by "computer hackers". At the peak of the attack, "Yahoo website" received as much information as "1 gigabit" per second, which was more than some websites received in one year! If the "bit tax" is levied according to the information flow, Yahoo, the world's largest Internet company, will be overwhelmed (note: under normal circumstances, Yahoo's website visits this website about 350 million times a day). This example can be used as evidence that "bit tax" is not appropriate.
3. How to tax e-commerce? This mainly involves the permanent establishment, the place where labor activities take place, the legal effect of electronic transaction data, transfer pricing and other issues related to e-commerce tax collection and management.
(1) permanent establishment logo. The current tax law has a clear definition of a permanent establishment, that is, a permanent establishment refers to a fixed place (including branches, factories, workshops, sales departments and permanent institutions, etc.). A place where an enterprise conducts all or part of its business. Enterprises engaged in e-commerce often conduct online transactions by renting a "space" (that is, building a website) on the server of an Internet provider in a country (place). There is neither a fixed business place nor personnel engaged in business in the country (place) where the server is located. In international taxation, a country usually takes whether a foreign enterprise has a permanent establishment in the country as the basis for defining whether to tax its operating profits, but the provisions on permanent establishment in the current tax law are no longer applicable to the identification of permanent establishment in e-commerce transactions. In this regard, some countries have proposed that websites or servers should be regarded as permanent institutions and taxed in the country where the websites or servers are located. The basis is: first, the server rented by the enterprise is relatively fixed, and the enterprise has the right to dispose of it; Second, the server rented by an enterprise can be regarded as similar to a sales organization located in a country (place); Third, the enterprise has carried out business activities in a certain country (place) through the rented server, so the website can be designated as a permanent institution. The permanent establishment in e-commerce transactions has not been finalized internationally.
(2) Identification of the place where the labor service activity takes place. Nowadays, with the popularity of the Internet, people can sit in front of their computers at home and provide accounting, legal, medical and design services to consumers in another country (region), without setting up a "fixed base" for labor activities in another country (region) like traditional labor activities, and without staying in another country (region) for many days. Therefore, the provisions of the current tax law on "fixed base" and "duration of stay" in labor activities are no longer applicable to labor activities in e-commerce transactions. Therefore, for independent individuals and subordinate individuals, the identification of the place where labor activities take place in e-commerce transactions needs to be re-determined. It can be seen that due to the characteristics of e-commerce transactions (not limited by space and geography), it is difficult to identify the permanent institutions and places where labor services occur.
(3) Transfer pricing. With the rapid development of e-commerce, it is easier for e-commerce transactions to transfer goods, and it is easier for multinational companies to transfer profits from one country to another. Therefore, countries pay more and more attention to transfer pricing in e-commerce transactions. Europe, America and OECD have studied this, pointing out that e-commerce has not changed the nature of transfer pricing or brought new problems, and the current international and domestic transfer pricing standards are basically applicable to e-commerce. However, because e-commerce is free from physical boundaries (not limited by space and region), it is obviously more difficult for tax authorities to track, identify and confirm cross-border transactions. Therefore, while supplementing, modifying and perfecting the current transfer pricing standards, countries should strengthen the construction of e-commerce tax collection and management facilities (including hardware, software, standards, etc. ) and improve the quantity and quality of e-commerce electronic data verification.
(4) Identification of digital products. How to identify the nature of digital products (such as electronic publications, software, etc.)? ) Download via the Internet? At the meeting of OECD finance ministers held in June 1998, the European Union put forward a proposal that the provision of digital products should be regarded as the provision of labor services, and forced the United States to accept this proposal. The proposal of the European Union clearly stipulates that if any of the consumers or suppliers is outside the EU, the place where the consumers are located should be the place where the services are provided; If both the consumer and the supplier are in the EU, the supplier's location should be the labor supply place. This is actually the EU's response and countermeasure to the tariff-free policy of digital products proposed by the United States.
(5) Tax collection and management system. The current tax collection and management system is based on the supervision of buyers and sellers. However, in the tax collection and management of e-commerce, the tax authorities cannot track, master and identify the "huge" e-commerce transaction data of buyers and sellers, and take it as the tax basis. In this regard, Europe and the United States and other countries put forward the idea of establishing an e-commerce tax collection and management system based on the regulatory payment system (financial institutions). In e-commerce transactions, both parties (sellers and buyers) must pay through bank settlement, and the names of the people involved in the transaction cannot be completely hidden. All data, such as purchase orders, receipts and payments, are stored in the bank's calculator. Focusing on the payment system can make it easier for tax authorities to grasp the data of e-commerce transactions from the data stored in banks and determine the tax amount accordingly. To this end, European and American economists have also designed an e-commerce tax collection and management model to monitor the payment system and deduct taxes from banks.
In addition, when discussing and studying e-commerce tax issues internationally, it also involves the legal effect of e-commerce transaction data (Europe and the United States have passed legislation to confirm the legal effect of e-commerce transaction data, which can be used as tax payment vouchers) and whether to implement the principle of consumption or the principle of source (most countries tend to implement the principle of source, that is, tax is levied in the country where the supplier-seller is located, because in e-commerce,
To sum up, in a word, the tax issues involved in e-commerce can be mainly divided into two categories:
One is the problem brought by the re-identification of the tax-related concept of e-commerce, that is, the ambiguity of the concept of "transaction space" caused by the virtualization of e-commerce leads to the redefinition of relevant tax laws and regulations. In the current tax laws and regulations, the provisions of e-commerce are not applicable, and almost all of them involve physical concepts such as "business place" and "business place". This will inevitably lead to the re-determination and choice of tax jurisdiction. At present, some countries in the world determine tax jurisdiction based on the principle of territoriality, some based on the principle of resident jurisdiction, and some exercise it in parallel. If the principle of resident jurisdiction is applied to tax jurisdiction, developed countries will unfairly benefit from developing countries by virtue of their technologically advanced products and services, while foreign-related taxes in developing countries are almost zero. If the revenue source is the principle of tax jurisdiction, the virtualization of e-commerce will make it difficult to confirm the revenue source and increase the difficulty of territorial tax jurisdiction.
The second is the problems brought by the "concealment" of e-commerce transactions. The emergence of e-commerce has turned traditional paper contracts, account books, invoices, bills and remittance payments into digital streams and information streams. However, the electronicization of tax collection and management lags behind the development of network technology, which makes it necessary for tax authorities to track, master and audit the electronic digital transaction data different from paper transaction vouchers, so as to manage e-commerce with hidden transactions fairly and effectively. At present, the international research on e-commerce tax policy has reached agreement on some issues, or tends to be consistent, while some issues have not yet been finalized. With the further development of e-commerce and the adoption of new network and communication technologies, some new problems involving e-commerce taxation will arise. Therefore, the international research on e-commerce tax policy will continue to deepen, and we should pay close attention to it.
II. Opinions and suggestions on studying and formulating China's e-commerce tax policy
At present, e-commerce in China is in the process of changing from concept to reality. According to the statistics of relevant departments in China, the national e-commerce transaction volume from 65438 to 0999 is about 200 million yuan, and its payment methods include online payment and cash on delivery, which is roughly equivalent to the annual turnover of two large shopping malls. Here, combined with the specific situation of e-commerce in China, we put forward some opinions and suggestions on the research and formulation of e-commerce tax policy.
1. China's accession to the WTO is just around the corner. We should make a decision first, whether to agree to the unanimous resolution of WTO to exempt online transactions (intangible products). What countermeasures should be taken? Are online transactions (intangible products) exempt from customs duties? Do you regard intangible products as tangible products and continue to levy tariffs? Or take intangible products as labor services and collect value-added tax according to the practice of the European Union? Or treat the income from intangible products trading as royalties and levy withholding tax? This requires the relevant departments of our government to respond as soon as possible on the basis of comprehensive analysis of national fiscal revenue and the development of national industries.
2. China should formulate preferential tax policies for domestic e-commerce. At present, we should conduct a comprehensive and in-depth study on the taxation of e-commerce. But we should not focus on how to collect taxes. Therefore, in a certain period of time, China should not tax e-commerce which is still naive in China. In the case of international tax exemption for e-commerce, the taxation of e-commerce in China is not conducive to the development of e-commerce in China. In addition, with the current level of technology in China (also in the world), the cost of taxing e-commerce is very high, and it is technically impossible. In addition, China has not yet established a comprehensive tax team that understands both e-commerce technology and tax policy. More importantly, China has not yet established and improved supporting laws related to e-commerce.
Judging from the specific operation form and development progress of e-commerce, global e-commerce will not have a strong impact on China's tax revenue for the time being. Tangible physical transactions involved in e-commerce can still be managed by the customs. For digital products on the network, such as software, database products, audio-visual products, etc. , tax collection and management can also take corresponding measures.
There will be no e-commerce tax in the world for two or three years. China should use this precious time to formulate and establish preferential tax policies for e-commerce in China. Among them, we should not only formulate preferential policies for e-commerce, but also formulate preferential policies for high-tech industries closely related to e-commerce.
(1) Give tax incentives to enterprises (Internet service providers) that establish e-commerce trading centers and provide e-commerce services, such as exemption from business tax;
(2) Give preferential policies to new service industries based on e-commerce, such as reducing or exempting business tax;
(3) encourage enterprises to use e-commerce to sell international products or services (for example, increase the export tax rebate rate) to improve international economic competitiveness;
(4) Investment enterprises should update their internal technologies to improve the degree of automation and informatization; In particular, enterprises carry out BtoB e-commerce construction and give tax incentives, such as implementing investment credits;
(5) Give tax incentives to enterprises that directly sell their own products through e-commerce, such as reducing or exempting relevant taxes;
(6) Using tax policies to promote the development of high-tech industries with information industry as the main body, including life sciences, genetic engineering, new energy, new materials, space technology, marine development technology, environmental technology and other pollution-free and sustainable industries. In a word, the implementation of preferential tax policies for China's just-started e-commerce will not affect the national fiscal revenue, but will also promote the healthy and rapid development of China's e-commerce.
While studying and formulating e-commerce tax policies, we should also strengthen the electronic construction of tax collection and management and establish a high-quality tax team. In a sense, after the e-commerce tax policy is determined, e-tax collection and management and the construction of high-quality tax team are decisive factors, which is the inevitable requirement of the network economy characterized by e-commerce for tax work.
(1) To meet the requirements of economic informationization and tax collection and management informationization, we should formulate unified tax collection and management business processes that conform to the characteristics of modern network economy and network society. Computer technology and information technology not only provide high-tech products and information-bearing processing means, but also give birth to efficient management science on this basis. It can change the organizational structure, enhance management functions, innovate management ideas and improve management methods. We should use this science to establish a new operation and management system of tax information system and form a new tax management model.
(2) Accelerate the tax collection and management and the informatization construction of the national economy, establish an information sharing network with customs, financial institutions, enterprises, industry and commerce and even foreign governments (at present, this network has been initially formed), and effectively monitor the production and trade activities of enterprises.
(3) Build a city-level modern tax monitoring system and tax collection and management system based on WAN, which fully realizes information sharing among departments (at present, China's tax authorities have established national, provincial and prefecture-level WAN, and are extending to county-level tax authorities), and on this basis, build a sound national macro-tax collection and management, analysis, forecasting and planning information base.
(4) Summarize the experience of the "Golden Tax Project" which has been completed and operated by the tax authorities, with computer cross-checking of VAT invoices and anti-counterfeiting and tax-controlled cash registers as the main contents. According to the technical characteristics of e-commerce, develop, design and formulate tax collection and management software and standards for monitoring e-commerce, so as to make technical preparations for the collection and management of e-commerce in the future.
(5) Strengthen the education and training of tax cadres, so that the majority of tax cadres can not only understand the knowledge of information network, but also be familiar with the e-commerce tax collection and management business, and gradually establish a high-quality tax team to adapt to the new situation.
Three. Thoughts and principles of studying e-commerce tax policy
At present, in the process of studying e-commerce in China, there are two tendencies: one is "grim theory", which holds that e-commerce poses a serious challenge to the current tax system and should be greatly reformed; One is the "simple theory", which holds that the current tax system is completely applicable to e-commerce without any modification or supplement. We think they are both biased. We believe that the principles and ideas of studying the tax policy of e-commerce should be as follows: First, based on the existing tax laws and regulations, supplement and improve them to adapt to the development of e-commerce. As a new trade mode different from traditional commerce, e-commerce still carries the goods and services that people often use in the existing society. Its content and essence have not changed. The current tax laws and regulations and their tax principles are social norms of social production and trade activities, which are basically applicable to e-commerce. We should continue to use the current tax laws and regulations and their tax principles to explain, analyze and study the tax problems of e-commerce. The second is to understand and grasp the characteristics and essence of e-commerce, and study and formulate policies and measures for tax collection and management. Everything exists in space and time. E-commerce is no exception. Although the "virtualization" of e-commerce transactions makes people feel that e-commerce transactions are not limited by space and time (in fact, e-commerce only shortens the transaction time and cancels and reduces physical places such as office buildings, shops and warehouses), people (buyers and sellers), money (loans) and things (tangible and intangible) in e-commerce transactions still exist in a certain space and time, and will never be affected by electronization. Everything has its main interrelated links. Among the three links of e-commerce: information flow, capital flow and logistics, capital flow is the main link. In the study of e-commerce tax policy, we should grasp the relationship among "people", "money", "things" and especially "money" (for example, the idea of establishing a regulatory payment system in Europe and America is a useful inspiration), and study and formulate corresponding tax collection and management policies and measures. Everything is interdependent. Since people can create network communication technology to transmit a large number of digital information flows, they can also invent methods and measures to manage and control digital information flows. The development of information technology and network technology also provides advanced technical means for tax collection and management, and brings advanced and efficient modern management technology. Thirdly, in the process of international legislation (including tax laws and regulations) of e-commerce, there is a trend that international legislation precedes domestic legislation, and developed countries such as Europe and the United States dominate, which we should attach great importance to and pay close attention to. We should use various channels to extensively collect the documents and materials related to e-commerce taxation in various countries (Europe, the United States, Japan and other countries have issued many documents related to e-commerce taxation policies, such as the E-commerce Taxation Guide of the European Union, the Electronic Account Book Preservation Law of Japan, the E-commerce and Taxation-Periodic Report of the OECD, and the Global E-commerce Taxation Choice Policy of the United States) and closely follow them. In short, as long as we establish correct ideas and principles, pay attention to the development of e-commerce in the world and China, investigate the technical characteristics of e-commerce, study the tax system and collection and management problems that may be brought about by e-commerce, and at the same time strengthen the cooperation of relevant departments and strengthen the research on e-commerce tax policies, we can formulate e-commerce tax policies that adapt to the inherent laws of e-commerce and conform to tax principles.
References:
1. global e-commerce framework, U.S. government, 1997 July 1.
2. China e-commerce development comprehensive report, Deng Shoupeng,199965438+February 28th.
3. Introduction to Electronic Commerce, edited by Qian Shide. 65438+May 0998.
4. Global Network Economy, by Xiao Chen, 1998.
5. On the tax jurisdiction mode of e-commerce, Zhang Qin, Han Feng, 2000-0 1-036. Tax translation series, 1999, issues 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.