Tag: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

The Coalition for Digital Intelligence (CDI), a platform created in association with the World Economic Forum (Forum) and formed jointly by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), IEEE Standards Association (IEEE), and DQ Institute, has today launched the DQ Global Standards Report 2019 which is the world’s first attempt to define a global standard for digital literacy, skills and readiness across the education and technology sectors.

The indirect taxation of cross-border e-commerce transactions have been high on the agenda for tax authorities worldwide. There is clearly a perception that much of these transactions are escaping indirect tax (essentially VAT) because the supplier and consumer are in different jurisdictions.

South Africa recently tightened its transfer pricing and disclosure requirements, implementing global standards. This was an important step to enable the South African Revenue Service (SARS) to enforce transfer pricing rules and to counter undesired base erosion through profit shifting. However, the question remains what else can be done to address impermissible transfer (mis-) pricing and to stimulate investment into South Africa, as tax collections have not been where they should be and it is expected that further expenditure will be proposed in the 2019 Budget?

A new SA-TIED research study estimates that South Africa loses about 7 billion ZAR a year due to profit shifting by multinational corporations; amounting to about 4% of total current corporate income tax receipts.

Transfer Pricing compliance requirements in South Africa have been significantly tightened and a modern transfer pricing system, including electronic transfer pricing return submission, has been put in place.