Light The Web

BOOK REVIEW

INTERNET BUSINESS
COMMERCE AND TAX

2nd edition by Julian J B Hickey

Jordans Publishing

www.jordanpublishing.co.uk

ISBN: 978 1 84661 304 3

INTERNET BUSINESSES AND TRANSACTIONS: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THEIR TAXATION

An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers

If you’re a practitioner, or in any way involved professionally in advising internet businesses on matters of taxation, this practical guide from Jordans provides an up-to-date overview of the corporation tax and VAT issues relevant to the main aspects of internet business.

Writing in an appropriately businesslike fashion, author Julian Hickey — a partner at Bird & Bird LLP — first examines the nature of internet business itself — which we are sure most readers would find useful — i.e. the structure and terminology of the e-commerce, IT, e-infrastructure and internet world, adding that no specific scheme of taxation pertains directly to internet business transactions.

Therefore, as he explains, the setting up of and the day-to-day operation of internet businesses and e-commerce transactions have to be slotted into the general framework of tax law. Consequently, a number of questions arise, of which the following are just two examples. Can a non-UK e-tailer be taxed in the UK, for instance and under what circumstances? And here’s a complicated one: what are the VAT consequences when a UK customer accesses a website via a smart phone whilst travelling abroad and orders goods and/or services to be delivered in the UK?

If you have cause to wonder or ponder over these complexities, you obviously need this book, which also considers potential tax issues that arise for shareholders in an internet-based company.

As it has been ten years since the publication of the first edition of this volume, the emergence of this new second edition is indeed timely. The proliferation over the past decade of internet business as well as consumer opportunities and social networks — Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, to name just three — has meant that most forms of business and services, including the law of course, could not possibly function without the use of information technology.

Lucid, readable and meticulously footnoted the book is divided into six parts, which together constitute a practical guide, with practical advice designed to steer the practitioner down the most efficient, most accurate route to dealing with — and ultimately solving — the tax problems of internet-based business clients.

As you’d naturally expect, this new and up-to-date second edition contains new chapters and new material to reflect changes in the law over the past decade and the evolution and proliferation of internet activities. The author expresses the hope that this erudite and user-friendly volume will act as a first point of reference on this complex subject, both for those new to it and for more experienced advisers as well.

Impressively researched, the book also contains extensive tables of cases, statutes, and statutory instruments, as well as tables of EC and other materials. There are nine appendices and a useful index at the back to facilitate ease of use. For lawyers, particularly tax advisers, this book has to be an essential purchase. The law is stated as at January 2012.

Duration : 0:4:17

Continue reading Internet Business – Commerce and Tax →

Technorati Tags: jordan publishing, richmond green chambers