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Cross-border or online: Tax competition with mobile consumers under destination and origin principle

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  • Birg, Laura

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of an online retailer on spatial tax competition with mobile consumers. Under non-cooperative Leviathan governments, tax treatment of online purchases according to the destination principle mitigates tax competition; tax treatment of online purchases of online purchases according to the origin principle enhances tax competition. Cooperation between government eliminates the potential pro-competitive effect of the online retailer: Under both tax treatments, the online retailer weakens tax competition. For a sufficiently low tax rate in the country hosting the online retailer, welfare in the online retailer's home country is higher under the origin principle, while welfare in the other country is higher under the destination principle. For a sufficiently low tax differential between both countries, global welfare is higher under the destination principle.

Suggested Citation

  • Birg, Laura, 2019. "Cross-border or online: Tax competition with mobile consumers under destination and origin principle," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 265, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics, revised 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cegedp:265
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Hikaru Ogawa & Ryota Tsuchiya, 2024. "Taxing Cross-Border Online Sales for Pareto Improvement in Tax Revenue," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1235, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    2. Hiroshi Aiura & Hikaru Ogawa, 2021. "Does E-Commerce Ease or Intensify Tax Competition? Destination Principle vs. Origin Principle," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1169, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    3. Kelemen, József, 2017. "Több piacra épülő webáruház térbeli árversenye [Spatial price competition for a web shop built on several markets]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 612-629.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    tax competition; cross-border shopping; online retailer; destination principle; origin principle;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

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