International Tax Implications of Cloud Computing

The current tax laws are based heavily on concepts of physical geography, such as controlling premises and physical equipment or employing staff in the jurisdiction. The geographical concepts do not accommodate the cloud business model in any sensible way. As a consequence, the taxation of cloud providers is particularly complex and uncertain, as this paper will show, by examining the direct and inidirect tax treatment of cloud computing services. The law is clearly in urgent need of reform, and this is accepted by most states even if they do not agree how reform should be achieved. Residence-based taxation of digital enterprises is becoming increasingly difficult and artificial. Also, traditional source rules, particularly the permanent establishment rule, are based on the assumption that cross-border activities require a physical presence in the market jurisdiction; in the digital economy this is no longer true. The suggested policy solutions attempt to take account of online service users’ contribution and hence allocate taxing rights to the jurisdictions where they are located (market jurisdictions). More fundamentally, every change to the rules of international tax law tends to increase the tax revenues of some states whilst correspondingly decreasing the tax revenues of others. In this context, cloud computing transactions will be inevitably impacted by the new international tax landscape