A collection of the brief insights throughout August 2018 of the type provided on an ad hoc basis in our Latest digital tax byte update.
1 August 2018: UK Discussion Paper on the Economic Value of Data
17 August 2018: The Evolving UK Position
The UK has positioned itself a thought leader in the "corporate taxation of the digitalising economy" debate. The UK's position papers in November 2017 and March 2018 (the latter of which was released only a few days before the EC and OECD papers) sought to lead the discussion and limit the focus towards businesses that it saw as creating value through "user participation". This concept is subtly different from "user value". Chapter 2 of the March report is a useful guide on what the UK sees as the distinction, which seems to be limiting a very broad concept that could apply to all businesses, to one which applies much more to highly digitalised businesses only (i.e. generation of user content, depth of engagement with a platform, network effects/externalities, and direct contribution of users to brand).
