Artificial Intelligence Goes Shopping, Creates Tax Challenges

Artificial intelligence is starting to move from recommending products to buying them.

In what is often called agentic commerce, an AI system acts on behalf of a customer to search, compare, and complete purchases. The user sets preferences. The agent executes. It can scan multiple retailers, evaluate price and delivery time, and place the order within the same interface. The agent doesn’t just suggest options—it can finalize the transaction.

McKinsey estimates that AI-driven agents could orchestrate between $3 trillion and $5 trillion in global sales annually by 2030. Gartner expects a third of enterprises to embed agentic AI into commerce processes within a few years. Whether those projections materialize or not, the model is moving from theory to product design.

For tax, the question is simple. When an AI agent completes a sale, who is required to collect tax?

The answer depends on how existing marketplace tax liability rules apply to the agent’s role in the transaction. Those rules weren’t drafted with large language models in mind, but they’re broad enough to capture them.

AI systems don’t have legal personality. They can’t bear tax obligations. Liability must attach to a legal entity. In practice, that means the company operating the agent may have to collect taxes for transactions facilitated by agentic commerce apps.

EU Value-Added Tax

In the EU, an online platform can be treated as the supplier for VAT purposes even when a third-party merchant provides the goods or services. This is the deemed supplier model.

When this model applies, the law creates two supplies. The merchant is treated as selling to the platform, often outside the scope of VAT or zero-rated. The platform is then treated as reselling to the customer. The platform must charge and remit VAT on the final sale.

The regime covers three main situations:

• Low-value goods imported into the EU with a value of 150 euros ($178) or less
• Goods of any value supplied to an EU consumer by a seller established outside the EU when a platform facilitates the sale
• Electronically supplied services

Under EU VAT law, a platform generally is considered a deemed seller if it’s involved in essential elements of the transaction. This includes setting or controlling key terms, authorizing payment, or ordering and coordinating delivery.

There are exclusions. Simply processing payments without more doesn’t trigger deemed supplier status: nor does advertising products or redirecting users to a merchant’s website where the transaction is completed independently.

In practice, many agentic commerce models aim for integrated checkout. The user stays inside the app. The agent confirms the order and processes payment. The merchant receives the order through an API or similar integration.

In that scenario, the app isn’t just a search tool. It sits in the middle of the transaction flow and is likely to meet the criteria for deemed supplier treatment.

US Sales Tax

In the US, every state with a sales tax imposes tax collection obligations on marketplace facilitators. These laws were enacted after the US Supreme Court’s Wayfair decision and designed to shift the compliance burden from individual sellers to platforms. Definitions vary by state, but two elements appear consistently.

First, the platform provides a forum, physical or electronic, for sellers to list or offer goods or services. Second, the platform directly or indirectly processes or collects payment from the purchaser and transmits it to the seller.

Payment control is the central trigger. If an AI commerce app collects funds from the customer and passes them to the merchant, it usually will meet the payment processing element. Even if a third-party payment provider is used, the platform still may be considered to be facilitating the sale if it has a contractual role in the transaction.

The listing element can also be satisfied in a functional sense. An AI agent that presents curated options from multiple vendors and enables a purchase within its own interface effectively provides a marketplace environment, even if it doesn’t resemble a traditional storefront.

Unlike the EU model, US marketplace facilitator laws generally apply to all taxable sales made through the platform once economic nexus thresholds are met. These thresholds often are around $100,000 in annual sales or 200 transactions in a state. In that sense, the US model captures a wider set of transactions than the EU deemed supplier rules. It’s not limited to foreign sellers or low-value goods. Domestic sellers using the platform are also covered.

For agentic commerce, the practical implication is clear: An integrated in-app checkout model, combined with payment handling, is likely to place the operator within marketplace facilitator definitions in many states.

Practical Takeaway

Agentic commerce apps don’t look like traditional marketplaces. They may not display a public product catalog. But that difference in interface doesn’t change the tax analysis.

An AI commerce app may describe itself as a personal assistant. It may emphasize that the customer remains in control. But if the platform authorizes payment, transmits orders, or otherwise sits at the center of the transaction, tax authorities will look at those facts.

If the app only aggregates information and then redirects the user to the merchant’s own checkout page, the analysis may change. In that case, the merchant is likely to remain the seller for VAT or sales tax purposes.

However, each case depends on the specific design of the platform. Small differences in checkout flow or payment authorization can change the analysis.

The platform liability framework was designed to address enforcement challenges in cross-border and interstate e-commerce. It wasn’t written with AI agents in mind. But its functional tests focus on transaction control and payment flow, not branding or user interface. That makes it adaptable to agentic models.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Aleksandra Bal is global tax technology lead at Stripe and a frequent contributor to tax publications and industry conferences.

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