Volume 11 Issue 1

Tax Issues in Cyberspace

PROFESSOR BRIAN ANDREW* & MARK HUGHES**

The article examines the challenges to existing national tax regimes by the growth of internet commerce, looking at such problems as the difficulty of identifying the parties and locating the transaction for tax purposes, obtaining documentation and evidence, and the problems posed for tax and customs officials by the dematerialisation of trade, disintermediation, the cashless society and growing access to tax havens and off-shore banking. The changes facilitate large scale tax evasion and threaten transaction-based taxes such s the GST and will require the rewriting of many tax treaties.

** Lecturer in Accounting, University of Canberra.