Indian government suggests levy agenda for global ecommerce companies

India has already announced the issue ahead of the G20 meeting in Australia in the first half of November 2014, which will be attended by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Suresh Prabhu, the participant for the G20 talks, has claimed that the taxation of ecommerce is a complicated issue as the logistics, production and consumption may take place in different parts of the globe. An official said that, apart from India, no other party has signed the document promoting a tax on global companies’ activities in the domestic area.

But a major gain for India will come in the form of an endorsement to the countrys demand for lower charges on remittances. Prabhu said that in some countries, the charges were as high as 10%, which reduced the amount transferred by workers living abroad. Prabhu has also disclosed that there is agreement on imposing a levy of around 5% and Saudi Arabia has agreed to reduce it to 3.5%.

According to indiatimes.com, India is the largest recipient of remittances, which are estimated at over USD 70 billion, with a large part of the money coming from Indian workers in the Middle East, who send money to their families.