Taxation of e‐commerce in Hong Kong: applying UK and US experience
Due to the rapid growth of electronic commerce worldwide, the traditional approach of taxing business profits in Hong Kong, a source‐based common law jurisdiction, warrants a close review as to its compatibility with such a modern way of doing business. Although the Inland Revenue Department of Hong Kong has issued its views on the taxation of electronic commerce profits as Departmental Interpretation and Practice Note 39, much of the treatment of such profits follow the conventional wisdom of taxing business profits as set in the source‐based rules. This paper reviews the present situation of taxing profits arising from electronic commerce transactions in Hong Kong and compares it with the cases of the UK and the USA. Problems in formulating water‐tight tax law, accounting standards for intangible assets, and coping with cross‐border fraud, indicate that progress may not be straightforward. Issues as to fairness, and the difficulty of taxing such receipts are raised, followed by recommendations.
Taxation of E-commerce in Iran
One of the newest business activities in recent years is related to the emergence and development of e-commerce. The extension of e-commerce increases the possibility of evading from the taxation of new income resources which have traditionally been taxed in other ways. Having in mind the importance of this matter, the present research is going to investigate e-tax systems throughout the world and to introduce a model for the establishment of an electronic taxation system in Iran. An infrastructure needed for e-commerce is to provide for security which is very important in the e-commerce environment and for which there is a large amount of demand. Lack of security in the virtual world can be a barrier to the development of e-commerce. Our proposed model for the taxation of ecommerce in Iran is based upon making use of a secure electronic exchange database whereby the government presents security to users and exchangers and, at the same time, taxes their e-commerce activities. In this paper, we have used Delphi method and Sign Non-Parametric / Freidman tests to assess our proposed model of e-taxation. The findings obtained are as follows: the best tax category to be applied to e-commerce is VAT but the Iranian VAT laws and regulations should be modified prior to being applied to e-commerce; the creation of an electronic database by the Iranian government is economically justified; real and legal entities in Iran are sufficiently willing to make use of this electronic database; a national TIN code is required for the identification and tracing of companies engaged in the electronic environment; the best way of providing security in an electronic database is to use digital signature and digital certificate; sellers are the best agents for the collection of taxes; moreover, there is a need for concluding agreements with other countries on such topics as the exchange of information and avoiding double taxation.
New Sweet-Tasting C21-Pregnane Glycosides from Pericarps of Myriopteron extensum.
Ten novel C21 pregnane glycosides, extensumside C-L (1-10), were isolated as highly sweet-tasting substances from the edible pericarps of Myriopteron extensum (Wight) K. Schum by sensory-guided fractionation and purification. Their structures were determined through 1D and 2D NMR, such as HSQC, HMBC, 1H-1H COSY, HSQC-TOCSY, and ROESY, as well as other spectroscopic analysis combined with chemical evidence. These compounds shared the same aglycone, 3β,16α-dihydroxy-pregn-5-en-20-one, and contained the deoxysugar chain and the glucose chain which were linked to C-3 and C-16 of the aglycone, respectively. The sweetness potency was evaluated by a human sensory panel test and preliminary structure-taste relationship was discussed. The sweetness intensities of these compounds are between 50 and 400 times greater than that of sucrose. Furthermore, quantitation analyses of compounds 1, 3, 4, and 6 in different parts of M. extensum indicated that the concentrations of these sweet components in the pericarps are obviously higher than those in stems and roots.