The technology service and against the taxman – InfoMoney

guest columnist: Fernando Zilveti , associate professor of taxation finance FGV

The issue of technology concerns the agents of policy tax for a long time. Several countries formulate taxation taking into account technological advances. There are even those who argue that technology taken to the extreme can distort the tax system, so that the tax no longer takes into account the economic fact to raise. In this sense, it is feared that technology determines the virtual fact, fiction determine how much the taxpayer will pay for the public coffers.

Depending on the technology, on the other hand, the OECD – Organization for Cooperation and Development Economic, considered the business e as of great concern to combat erosion phenomenon of tax bases and translation of profit. This global problem was called by the acronym BEPS – Base Erosion and Profit Shifting . Several OECD member countries and other guests, such as Brazil, are committed to tackling the inefficiency of tax instruments to capture the richness developed in e-commerce.

The task force OECD BEPS on the eCommerce concluded recently that there is no economy digital separated so that does not warrant a tax especially for that phenomenon. What was discussed, after all, was only paying attention to the allocation of profit on permanent establishments and best techniques of determination of the transfer price, both measured afetas to tax direct.

On the indirect tax on consumption, the OECD-BEPS recognizes the challenge of designing an efficient tax system to prevent the escape of e-commerce taxation. On the other hand, it is recognized that practical mechanisms such as withholding tax, known in Brazil as tax substitution, are problematic for the market, and regressive to the taxpayer.

curious to note the concern of Task Force OECD BEPS regarding mechanisms such as tax substitution while in Brazil, the Treasury makes use of these mechanisms indiscriminately, with the use of technology, without observing the distorting effects for the economy as a whole, as well as harm the Taxpayer low-income with the regressivity.

The electronic-invoice as well as other mechanisms of compliance , culminating for determining the tax payable by the tax substitute neglecting the effects of the market on the consumption side that is, the actual trade price. There is a clear loss in retail profit margin by tax substitution.

In endurance exercise the power to tax, on the other hand, the taxpayer carries out technology. While the supranational institutions have addressed the electronic commerce and its effects on taxation, the taxpayer invests in technology to combat fiscal excess, as in the case of the drones. This means of transport unmanned promises to further disrupt the difficult retail relationship with the tax authorities, especially in the US.

The use of this technology was announced after the US Supreme Court refused to review lower court decision that allowed the state to tax e-commerce making use of legal fictions. As the share of e-commerce is growing steadily in the retail cake, the legislator should be creative enough to achieve this wealth without threatening the federal tax system and the rights of the taxpayer

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