Online Platform Operators as Sovereigns over the Ecommerce Sellers Selected by the German Legislator

Jörg Brettschneider

EconStor Preprints from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

Abstract: The German law to combat VAT fraud and other tax regulations went into force recently. The German legislator aims to enforce German VAT law via a liability of platform operators (like Amazon and eBay). The consequences of this regulatory approach are a) that platform operators enforce the law more strictly in relation to the ecommerce sellers than required by the law, b) that legal uncertainty occurs and c) that the legal protection of ecommerce sellers is not clear. Background of the more strict enforcement is that platform operators want to avoid liability risks. The situation from the ecommerce sellers’ perspective is described and discussed.

Keywords: VAT; VAT fraud; Umsatzsteuer; ecommerce; online-Handel; Amazon; ebay; Steuerbetrug; Mehrwertsteuer; Gesetz zur Vermeidung von Umsatzsteuerausfällen beim Handel mit Waren im Internet; China; Germany; Haftung; Liability; UStG; Umsatzsteuergesetz; Finanzamt Neukölln; legal enforcement; electronic marketplace; Fulfillment by Amazon; Value Added Tax; Fulfillment; e-commerce; Marktplatzhaftung (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F60 H25 H26 K34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law, nep-pay and nep-pub
Note: A previous German version was published on March 23rd 2019 on the German ecommerce blog wortfilter.de: “Amazon als vom Gesetzgeber auserwählter Souverän über die China-Händler”, https://www.wortfilter.de/wp/amazon-als-vom-gesetzgeber-auserwaehlter-souveraen-ueber-die-china-haendler/.
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:esprep:197795

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