James G. S. Yang’s research while affiliated with Montclair State University and other places

This chapter further considers the tax aspect of the internet commerce transaction, which found that the Chinese government imposes a value-added tax at a rate of 17%. The system to impose value-added is extremely complicated. The first buyer pays tax. The tax is transferred to the second buyer, so on and so forth until the last buyer. It requires detailed records. It makes the tax administration highly burdensome. On the contrary, in the United States, the sales tax rate is only 7% and is imposed only on the final consumer. There are no sales between the first buyer and the last buyer. The taxing system is much simpler than its counterpart in China.

The problems of tax evasion and tax avoidance are as old as taxes themselves. Between 2015 and 2016 alone, many U.S. multinational corporations were involved in tax disputes with the European Commission. From a historical perspective, these disputes are unprecedented as they have resulted in tremendous amount of tax penalties. The most notable case was Apple for €13 billion of unpaid tax. This article discusses what tax strategies these corporations used that caused such disputes. It specifically investigates seven corporations: Apple Inc., McDonald’s, Starbucks, Fiat, Amazon, Google, and Ikea, and elaborates on the following tax strategies: high royalties, intercompany transfer pricing, intercompany loans, and source of income in a high-tech industry. This article also discusses the European Commission’s charges of tax evasion and how these corporations defend against them. When multinational corporations are operating abroad, they must observe not only domestic tax law but also international law.