E-commerce Taxation Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic and Beyond

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has boosted e-commerce operations around the world because e-commerce has proven to be one of the most efficient and effective ways of enhancing business transactions between buyers and sellers amid the pandemic. The convenience stemming from e-commerce through limiting human interaction during the pandemic is the reason for the surge in people turning to the internet to transact business, as this tends to reduce the risk of contracting the virus. It is generally expected that the increase in e-commerce activities should have a positive relationship with tax revenues accruing to various countries but this is not the case. In the face of Covid-19, e-commerce operations have increased appreciably but governments worldwide are still losing a lot of money to e-commerce operations in terms of generated tax revenue. This is due to the anachronistic tax regime used for e-commerce taxation. This has compelled policymakers to question existing tax regulations, leaving them with no choice but to devise new methods of taxing e-commerce operations. As a result, this paper offers rarefied literature on critical e-commerce and Covid-19 issues, delves into e-commerce taxation and advocates for formulary income apportionment, tax compliance software development, and cross-border electronic invoicing as appropriate measures to improve e-commerce taxation in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond.