An Analysis of Actions of the OECD Action Plan on BEPS in the Digital Economy

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Communications - Multimedia, Internet, New Technologies, , language: English, abstract: This thesis investigates the various actions presented in the “Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” and their applicability to companies operating in the digital economy. Besides the actions stated in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Action Plan other measures against BEPS that can be found in recent literature are analysed and compared. Furthermore, it is examined whether these actions are suitable for preventing tax evasion of ebusinesses acting on a cross-border level. Both, indirect and direct taxation, as well as the concept of permanent establishment (PE) in the context of the digital economy are considered and analysed in this paper. The paper focuses mainly on the taxation of cross-border business transactions in the context of e-business. However, the thesis does not examine the situations of specific countries but primarily utilises a general view on the actions without regional limitations. Taxation of bricks and mortar businesses are not specifically considered, though, parallels to the digital economy may be drawn throughout the thesis.