Ecommerce and Cross Border Taxation

This text focuses upon the taxation issues that have arisen from Ecommerce and innovation of virtual enterprise.  


The issues of use, sales, and income taxation between states in the United States continue to evolve.  These issues originate from the Due Process and Commerce Clauses.  Application of domestic taxation as a foundation evolves into international taxation of Electronic Commerce.


long_summary: Electronic commerce by its very innovative nature has engendered a novel application of past precedents.  In the application of concepts of cross border taxation, it embraces traditional questions of source and resident taxation.  Initially these principles were developed domestically.  What has transpired in the development has been an evolution of the Due Process and commerce clauses of the United States.  


This evolution of constitutional considerations resulted because electronic commerce made for a complex determination of which domestic state had jurisdiction to tax electronic commerce.  It brushed up against precedent notions of how the Due Process and Commerce Clause had been analyzed in terms of activities sourced and effects upon those whose borders are crossed.


Author_Bio: Tulane University School of Law Graduate School of Law Program, Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D. 1996), New Orleans, Louisiana; Boston University School of Law Graduate Program in Banking Law Studies (LL.M. International Banking, 1992); Boston Massachusetts; Boston University School of Law Graduate Tax Program (LL.M. Taxation 1974); Cumberland School of Law of Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama (J.D. 1973); Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minnesota (B.S.B.A. 1969). 


Licensed member of The Florida and Tennessee Bar.  Member of the United States Tax Court and the United States Court of Federal Claims.


Keywords: ECommerce, Taxation, Commerce Clause, Due Process, Trade or Business, Permanent Establishment, Treaty