Tax Authorities Worldwide Lean on E-Commerce Sites to Collect VAT

The rapid growth in online sales around the world presents a major challenge for governments—how to ensure that taxes on the profitable sector are collected and sent to tax authorities.

Some countries, including the U.K., Germany, and India, are increasingly leaning on online marketplace platforms such as Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc. to take a role in collecting value-added tax (VAT) or goods and services tax (GST) from foreign sellers.

“There’s a significant amount of global sales activity occurring through these platforms,” said David Bradbury, head of the tax policy and statistics division at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and ...