전자상거래 과세정책의 국제적 갈등과 정책적 함의

For the last five years, the US has supported the a tax-free position in the e-commerce while EU and many developing countries have been against it, though they followed the WTO declaration that they should not impose taxes on digital goods downloaded through the Internet. International systems for e-commerce taxes have been experiencing international conflicts and confusions without a clear direction, because of technological and administrative difficulties of taxation and positions of countries about whether those taxes should be imposed or not. In 1998, the US enacted the Internet Tax Freedom Act(ITFA), with an aim to activate ecommerce. The Act was extended two more years in November 2001 and expired on October 31, 2003. But the US tried to enact a law that makes the ITFA permanent, which is so-called the Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act of 2003. This research examines international conflicts relating to taxing positions of the US and EU, and then discusses a direction for the e-commerce tax system in Korea. It is not possible and desirable for the direction of e-commerce taxes to be fixed according to international treaties among countries. Since the Internet does not have a boundary, the same tax policy is demanded among countries. This enlarges the international convergence of the Internet tax policy and demands a higher level of universality and generalization. Facing the economic Liberalism with a feature of the Realism, we need to participate in a shift into the interdependent liberalistic economy and to foster the ability to coordinate conflicts among actors, preparing tax principles and systems.