The ever-increasing digitalization of businesses has accelerated the need to address the many shortcomings and unresolved issues within the international corporate income tax system. In particular, the customer or “user”—through their online activities—is now considered by many as being a critical driving force behind the value of digital services. Furthermore, the rapid growth of digital service providers over the last decade has made them an increasingly popular target for special taxes—similar to wealth and solidarity taxes—which can also help mobilize much-needed revenues in the wake of a crisis. This paper argues that a plausible conceptual case can be made to tax the value generated by users under the corporate income tax. However, a number of issues need to be tackled for user-based tax measures to become a reality, which include agreement among countries on whether user value justifies a reallocation of taxing rights, establishing the legal right to tax income derived from user value, as well as an appropriate metric for valuing user-generated data if it is ever to be used as a tax base. Furthermore, attempting to tax only certain types of business is ill-advised, especially as user data is now being exploited widely enough for it to be recognized as an input for almost all businesses. Several options present themselves for consideration—from a modified permanent establishment definition combined with taxation by formulary apportionment, to user-based royalty-type taxes—each with their own merits and misdemeanors.

About the book The growing importance of the intangible assets in the global economy coupled with expanding international intra-firm trade, has meant that transfer pricing issues concerning intangibles have assumed critical importance for both the Multi National Enterprises as well as Tax authorities. The identification, accounting & valuation of intangibles is a challenging and evolving field. This volume details the various such issues and concerns from both industry and revenue perspective. Further, the contemporary issues of digital economy, tax planning, BEPS, GAAR have also been extensively dealt with. Key features · Explains in detail the meaning of various types of intangibles as defined in Income Tax Act. · Discusses the various possible methodologies for valuing the intangibles including the typical and residual methods · Accounts for all the relevant changes suggested by the OECD in the BEPS Action Point 8-10 report regarding intangibles · Valuation of Highly Uncertain as well Hard-to-Value Intangibles · Relevant Features of and taxation challenges posed by Digital economy · Various possible techniques of Tax Planning adopted by the Multi-national Enterprises · All the BEPS Action Point Reports along with recommendations as adopted globally as well as in India including Thin Capitalisation, PoEM, Equalisation Levy, amended DTAAs with Mauritius, Cyprus & Singapore {Updated upto Finance Bill, 2017 (India)} · Transfer Pricing Aspects of CCAs, Intra-group Services & Business Restructuring including issue of indirect transfers · Discussion on General Anti Avoidance Rules, to be implemented in India from 01/04/2017 · Famous and important global and Indian case laws with regard to intangibles · Detailed discussion on issue of AMP expenses & marketing intangibles

The Coding Revolution—a combination of the Digital Revolution and genetic engineering—has had a destructive effect on society. It has created a platform for extreme views that is loosening our economic, cultural, and political moorings. This book provides a systematic approach to policy and management to promote societal collaboration and unity. It describes the changes caused by the Digital Age, including the Internet, Artificial Intelligence, and various other technologies. The author then offers a new framework, Religious Humanism, which incorporates covenants of the Bible, the US Constitution and other sources of wisdom to foster collaboration and create a revitalized and inclusive global society. Narrative and analytical tools are offered as well as case examples.

Political risk now affects more markets and countries than ever before and that risk will continue to rise. But traditional methods of managing political risk are no longer legitimate or effective. In Tectonic Politics, Nigel Gould-Davies explores the complex, shifting landscape of political risk and how to navigate it. He analyses trends in each form of political risk: the power to destroy, seize, regulate, and tax. He shows how each of these forms reflects a deeper transformation of the global political economy that is reordering the relationship between power, wealth, and values. In a world where everything is political, the craft of engagement is as important as the science of production and the art of the deal. The successful company must integrate that craft—the engager's way of seeing and doing—into strategy and culture. Drawing on a career in academia, business, and diplomacy, Gould-Davies provides corporate leaders, scholars, and engaged citizens with a groundbreaking study of the fastest-rising political risk today. “As tectonic plates shape the earth,” he writes, “so tectonic politics forges its governance.”

The Allocation of Multinational Business Income: Reassessing the Formulary Apportionment Option Edited by Richard Krever & François Vaillancourt Although arm’s length methodology continues to prevail in international taxation policy, it has long been replaced by the formulary apportionment method at the subnational level in a few federal countries. Its use is planned for international profit allocation as an element of the European Union’s CCCTB proposals. In this timely book – a global guide to formulary apportionment, both as it exists in practice and how it might function internationally – a knowledgeable group of contributors from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, address this actively debated topic, both in respect of its technical aspects and its promise as a global response to the avoidance, distortions, and unfairness of current allocation systems. Drawing on a wealth of literature considering formulary apportionment in the international sphere and considering decades of experience with the system in the states and provinces of the United States and Canada, the contributors explicate and examine such pertinent issues as the following: the debate about what factors should be used to allocate profits under a formulary apportionment system and experience in jurisdictions using formulary apportionment; application of formulary apportionment in specific sectors such as digital enterprises and the banking industry; the political economy of establishing and maintaining a successful formulary apportionment regime; formulary apportionment proposals for Europe; the role of traditional tax criteria such as economic efficiency, fairness, ease of administration, and robustness to avoidance and incentive compatibility; determining which parts of a multinational group are included in a formulary apportionment unit; and whether innovative profit-split methodologies such as those developed by China are shifting traditional arm’s length methods to a quasi-formulary apportionment system. Providing a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of the formulary apportionment option, this state of the art summary of history, current practice, proposals and prospects in the ongoing debate over arm’s length versus formulary apportionment methodologies will be welcomed by practitioners, policy-makers, and academics concerned with international taxation, all of whom will gain an understanding of the case put forward by proponents for adoption of formulary apportionment in Europe and globally and the counter-arguments they face. Readers will acquire a better understanding of the implications of formulary apportionment and its central role in the current debate about the future of international taxation rules. “...providing (sic) all the intellectual ammunition needed to carefully re-examine one of the ideas traditionally considered as apocryphal by the OECD and to a significant portion of the tax professional community...readers of this book will come away not only with a renewed understanding of the multiple facets of formulary apportionment, but also of some of the fundamental pressure points in the international tax system. Accordingly, it is a welcome and timely addition to the literature. ” Dr. Stjepan Gadžo, Assistant Professor at University of Rijeka, Faculty of Law / British Tax Review 2021, Issue 2, p243-246