Taxation of e-commerce is a major concern for international agencies and tax authorities worldwide. In its most advanced form, e-commerce allows unidentified purchasers to pay obscure vendors in ‘electronic cash’ for products that are often goods, services and licences all rolled into one. A payee may be no more than a computer that can take up ‘residence’ anywhere; national boundaries are of no consequence whatsoever. The current debate over taxation of e-commerce has, to some extent, been little more than a rehash of a similarly inconclusive scholarly and legislative debate that raged over mail-order sales during the 1980s. However, in.
