euBy Giorgio Beretta (Editor) (Università Carlo Cattaneo – LIUC)/April 20, 2021
Much controversial research released by the World Health Organization (WHO) at the end of March 2021 has concluded that the inception of the COVID-19 disease is likely due to a crossover of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from animals to humans. Although not unprecedented as an accident, the chances of viruses crossing over from other species to human beings increase significantly if the parties in question are in close contact with one another. Allegedly, such an encroachment somehow occurred around the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.
Perhaps a similar crossover has occurred in the field of taxation lately. The parties involved in such an event happen to be taxes belonging to two different ‘species’, i.e. the (old) value added tax (VAT) and the (new) digital services tax (DST). VAT is a tax that, at least in the European Union (EU), can boast more than 50 years of ‘honourable service’. On the contrary, DST is the last-born in the realm of taxation, as the EU Commission has tabled it in a proposal only within the framework of the ‘Fair Taxation of the Digital Economy’ reform package unveiled in March 2018 [1]. Moreover, VAT is a consumption tax levied on all goods and services. Instead, DST is a levy imposed on digital businesses’ turnover as a short-term solution against the current deficit of taxation on profits made by large companies having a digital footprint in the EU [2].
Source: kluwertaxblog.com
