Speaker:
- Betty Andrade
Fellow MIAS - Tomás y Valiente
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
The seminar will also be accessible online.
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The international tax system has not been updated for decades to address an evident reality: major tech companies derive significant revenue from countries where they have no physical presence, leading to a lack of tax payments in those jurisdictions. A streaming algorithm, an advertising platform, or a software application can generate millions of euros in a country without having a single office or employee there. Current tax rules, designed in a different era, offer no solution to this phenomenon.
Several countries (including India, Nigeria, Colombia, and Kenya) have attempted to resolve this on their own by introducing their own digital taxes. The result is a fragmented map of incompatible regulations that hinder trade, lead to double taxation, and favor those with the most resources for tax planning.
This seminar analyzes the most ambitious attempt to find a global solution: the negotiation, within the United Nations, of a new international convention aimed at redefining when and where a digitally operating company should be taxed. At the heart of the debate is the concept of "significant economic presence": the idea that a company should pay taxes in a country not because it has a headquarters there, but because it has users, customers, and revenue there. It is a proposal with broad support in the Global South but strong resistance in Europe and the United States—a proposal whose political viability is as uncertain as its necessity is urgent.
Fig: Image generated by Canva AI
