Ahead of OECD talks this week in Paris, the director general of EuroCommerce, Christian Verschueren, has called on negotiators to make 'concrete progress' on modernising international taxation systems.
As he explained, both retailers and wholesalers, whether online or offline, support OECD discussions on modernising corporate tax systems, to make them appropriate to the digitised global economy.
"It is essential that negotiators now find common ground on taking forward the negotiations to find a multinational solution and avoid a growing trend towards fragmented national approaches," said Verschueren.
Check out ESM's recent interview with Christian Verschueren by clicking here.
Key Principles
Last year, EuroCommerce adopted a set of key principles for the taxation of the digitalised economy, including the need for fairness; for taxation to be based on profits rather than turnover; to ensure that the administrative burden is in proportion to the generated revenue, and a number of other criteria.
Central to this approach is that taxation is channel-neutral – suitable for both online and offline sales.
According to EuroCommerce, digitalisation offers opportunities to the entire economy, in particular to retail and wholesale, but the principles stress that the tax burden must be shared fairly among all market participants, no matter the business model or the size of the company.
“We know that finding a consensus is not easy, but the alternatives are worse, and provide no response to the challenges ahead," said Verschueren.
"We were pleased to see the United States and France finding an interim agreement last week in Davos, but businesses across Europe and the world are impatient to see the OECD reach a consensus, and very soon."
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
