Do South Africa's e-commerce VAT rules measure up to international trends and OECD guidelines?

Orientation: The taxability of e-commerce transactions have been the subject of many studies to protect governments from Value-Added Tax (VAT) erosion, illegal recovery and fraud. Research purpose: This study critically analyses the challenges posed by e-commerce transactions in South Africa's VAT Act . Recommendations are made for amendments to the VAT Act to improve rules to effectively tax e-commerce transactions occurring in South Africa. Motivation for the study: Globally, including in South Africa, enforcing relevant VAT legislation to target output tax collections and input tax credits from e-commerce transactions aptly remains a challenge. Research approach/design and method: By integrating qualitative literature reviews and comparative synthesis, this study employed a comparative legal methodology. VAT levied on e-commerce transactions in South Africa is compared to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's guidelines as well as New Zealand's and Australia's Goods and Services Tax legislations. Main Findings: While the South African VAT Act aligns with international best practices on the use of intermediaries, there are some differences as detailed in the study. Practical/managerial implications: To align with international trade counterparts, the South African VAT Act should differentiate between business-to-business and business-to-consumer sales. A provision concerning the place of consumption for bundled goods should be included in the VAT Act . The VAT Act should contain a provision that allows bad debts to be claimed on cash sales made instead of total sales made. Contribution/value-add: This study harmonises South African VAT legislation with international best practices within the context of continual advancement of e-commerce transactions.

Agent Based Digital Twin of Sorting Terminal to Improve Efficiency and Resiliency in Parcel Delivery

Open economy, globalization and effect of Covid19 pandemic are transforming the consumer behavior rapidly. The business is nudging consumers towards hyper consumption through online shopping, e-commerce and other conveniences with affordable cost. The companies from courier, express and parcel (CEP) industry are trying to capitalize on this opportunity by tying up with business to consumers (B2C) companies with a promise of delivering parcels to the doorstep in an ever-shrinking time window. In this endeavor, the conventional optimization-based planning approach to manage the fixed parcel payload is turning out to be inadequate. The CEP companies need to quickly adapt to the situation more frequently so as to be efficient and resilient in this growing demand situation. We propose an agent-based digital twin of the sorting terminal, a key processing element of parcel delivery operation, as an experimentation aid to: (i) explore and arrive at the right configuration of the existing sorting terminal infrastructure, (ii) be prepared for possible outlier conditions, and (iii) identify plausible solutions for mitigating the outlier conditions in an evidence-backed manner. This paper presents digital twin of the sorting terminal and demonstrates its use as “in silico” experimentation aid for domain experts to support evidence-backed decision-making. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

An Analytical View of Online Consumers’ Behavior in the Visegrad Group Countries: Social Status Perspective

Online shopping has been growing in importance recently, also due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19. The paper’s main goal was to evaluate and compare the development of online shopping in the Visegrad Group countries (Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary) in the years 2015 to 2020 and to point out significant differences based on the social status of consumers. The paper outlines the theoretical basis of online shopping, describes the current situation in the Visegrad Group countries and current trends in online shopping due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on data from the Eurostat database, the paper outlines the development of online shopping in monitored years and compares the results for individual countries. The results were compared on the basis of the social status of consumers (employed, unemployed, student, pensioner). In all countries in the period under review, there has been recorded an increase in online shopping, with the exception of Slovakia, which recorded a year-on-year decline in 2020. The largest increase compared to 2015 was found in the Czech Republic. A growing share of employed and unemployed online consumers, students and pensioners, was recorded with the highest share in all categories found in the Czech Republic. It could be assumed that online shopping will continue to grow in the future, not only due to the pandemic but also due to its undeniable advantages. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The Acceptance of Pay Later Payment Usage on Business-To-Consumer Online Marketplace in Indonesia

Pay Later is a new payment method that allows consumers to buy products using installments with a certain deadline. Pay Later have been adopted by various online marketplaces and increased during the COVID-19. This study aims to seek light on Pay Later payment method adoption on business-to-consumer (B2C) online marketplace in Indonesia using the modification of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This study uses the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis method with the help of SmartPLS 3.0 and a survey filled out by 1,141 respondents. The results showed that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, social influence, lifestyle compatibility, consumer trust, perceived risk, and debt attitude influence the users' intention to adopt/use Pay Later, and the intention is proven to influence the actual use of Pay Later in B2C online marketplace in Indonesia. © 2021 IEEE.