Major Inconvenience or Minor Irritation? Canadian Perspectives on Electronic Commerce, Globalisation and Taxation

Bibliographic Data

ID12677129
AuthorsJason R Lacharite
Year2009
Volume47
Issue2
Pages151-173
Publication date2009-04-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCommonwealth and Comparative Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1466-2043 • E-ISSN: 1743-9094
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14662040902857776
OpenAlexW2076432925
LanguageEN
References cited12

This article argues that, far from constituting an element of uncontrollable globalisation, the challenges posed by 'borderless' e-commerce have been largely overstated, specifically finding a major impact on Canadian tax revenue, hence also on tax policy, unlikely. Three reasons are offered. First, Canada's federal and provincial tax structures differ considerably from those found at the substate level in the US and at the state level in the European Union. Second, e-commerce appears to have had only a marginal impact on sales tax collection in Canada, with the appeal of foreign suppliers remaining quite modest. Third, the overall tax burden in Canada is relatively low by OECD standards. Therefore, there may be room to increase taxes in various areas to compensate for any potential losses in tax revenue resulting from e-commerce. Negatively, these findings are at odds with current perceptions of global e-commerce as a threat. Positively, they underline the point that tax system design matters

Ad valorem tax · Appeal · Business · Direct tax · Double taxation · Economics · European union · Globalization · Indirect tax · International economics · Market economy · Odds · Political science · Public economics · Revenue · Sales tax · Tax reform · Tax revenue · Value-added tax · Corporate Taxation and Avoidance · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Taxation and Compliance Studies · Finance

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