Indirect taxation of cross-border e-trade: features of national and intergovernmental regulation

Abstract

The contemporary research in the field of economic and legal assessment of e-trade development, published in Russia, provides a general description of the situation and prospects for the development of international online transactions. At the same time, the aggregate features of taxation of cross-border e-commerce (which is the paper’s subject) are highlighted, without focusing on indirect methods of tax regulation (which are the object of the paper). Based on previous theoretical, methodological and practical studies, the authors systematize the knowledge about cross-border e-commerce operations’ indirect tax regulation both at the national and interstate level, defining the main approaches to taxation in this area. They also propose to focus on the priority of the regulatory (stimulating) role of taxes in their application as tools for influencing international online trading transactions. The main provisions of the paper reveal the principles and features of collecting value-added tax (VAT), excise, customs, and postal duties in the field of export-import e-trade operations with goods, digital content, and electronic services in national tax systems. In addition, this paper characterizes the main directions of international coordination of cross-border e-commerce indirect taxation. The authors have proven their hypothesis that the rapid development of cross-border e-trade in the modern world makes this field of international economic relations attractive enough to enhance the fiscal role of indirect taxation at the national level; however, the difficulties for the global economy early in the third decade of the 21st century require prioritizing the regulating (stimulating) role of indirect taxes to support global economic and trade operations growth, including its electronic segment.