LINKS
IN THIS SECTION
- Executive
Summary
- Introduction: The
Scope of E-commerce Legislation and Regulation
- Supranational Regulation:
the EU, the OECD and other bodies
- The E-commerce Laws
in High-Tax Countries and Offshore Jurisdictions
RELATED
SECTIONS
-
Taxation
of Offshore E-commerce
- Offshore
E-commerce Facilities
- Offshore
Professional and Financial Services
-
Offshore E-commerce Applications
The general attitude
of international organisations, exemplified
by the EU and OECD, has been to be supportive
and helpful towards the development of electronic
commerce. However were are less impressed by
the migration of e-commerce towards offshore
jurisdictions, which is nomally driven at least
partly by a desire to minmise taxation.
The low tax countries
argued that tax competition is healthy and forces
countries to become more efficient, and the
high tax countries countered by arguing that
low-tax jurisdictions engage in 'unfair' or
'harmful' tax competition which causes illegitimate
losses of tax revenue and obliges high-tax countries
to reduce services to their needy populations.
The rich countries'
moves to hinder the - then - future theat posed
by offshore e-commerce were inseparable from
the major campaign they began to wage against
offshore during 1999 and 2000. At first these
anti-offshore moves were simply directed against
'offshore' as such, but increasingly the rhetoric
began to focus on offshore e-commerce, as businesses
and tax collectors woke up to the potential
for offshore e-commerce.
The rich countries'
campaign took tangible form in 2000 with the
publication of three 'lists' of offshore jurisdictions
which offended in various ways against global
orthodoxy:
- The G7's Financial
Stability Forum (FSF), set up after the Asian
'melt-down' in 1997/98, created a list of
countries it considered to represent a threat
to financial stability;
- The OECD's Financial
Action Task Force (FATF), set up at the behest
of the G7, listed countries which it deemed
to have inadequate controls against money-laundering;
- The OECD itself
issued a list of countries offering 'unfair'
tax competition; in addition,
- The EU's 'Code
of Conduct' committee issued a list of 'harmful'
tax practices in member states and their offshore
dependencies.
Led by the US,
the member countries of the G7 backed up the
lists by issuing 'advisories' against the countries
on the FSF list which called upon financial
institutions to exercise great care in undertaking
transactions with the listed countries.
The offshore jurisdictions
themselves characterised the behaviour of the
rich countries as 'bullying', 'unfair' and hypocritical,
since there are plenty of tax breaks available
onshore as well as offshore.
The lists prompted
howls of protest from the named jurisdictions,
but faced with the threat of sanctions, and
possibly worse, bad publicity, many of them
sought to mend fences with the rich countries
by adjusting tax practices and introducing new
legislation.
REGULATION
OF OFFSHORE E-COMMERCE
- Executive
Summary - A quick overview of major developments
in national and international regulation of
E-commerce with special reference to offshore
e-commerce.
- Introduction: The
Scope of E-commerce Legislation and Regulation
- A review of the range of laws impacting the
conduct of onshore and offshore e-commerce.
- Supranational Regulation:
the EU, the OECD and other bodies - International
initiatives to regulate e-commerce and offshore
e-commerce; anti-offshore initiatives.
- The E-commerce Laws
in High-Tax Countries and Offshore Jurisdictions
- The laws passed in 'high-tax' countries and
links to descriptions of the legislative situation
in each offshore jurisdiction.
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