IVA no comércio eletrónico

: quais os obstáculos em sede de IVA dos bens adquiridos eletronicamente quando comparados com a aquisição por meios tradicionais?

Abstract

The purchase of goods through e-commerce is an increasingly recurrent subject in the daily lives of the population due to the increasingly digitized and globalized world we live in. With the emergence of this new reality of the Internet, it has become essential to proactively take decisions regarding the e-commerce taxation, namely about value added tax.
For this reason and given the relevance of the subject, the main objective of this project is to answer the research question "What are the obstacles of buying goods through e-commerce, in the scope of VAT, comparing to the acquisition by traditional means?”. To answer this question an analysis of the following points will be carried out: (i) identifying the VAT obstacles faced by e-commerce offline in comparison with traditional trade; (ii) analyze whether the current legislation is adapted to e-commerce, in order to allow fiscal transparency; and (iii) to find out to what extent the online business coincides with the traditional business, in order to consider an alternative tax regime.
In order to reach all these answers a quantitative methodology was used, through the random selection of individuals to answer a questionnaire, as well as qualitative methods, namely through data collected from interviews and written documents. The investigation involved 104 individuals as final consumers and three companies acting as taxable persons.
It was concluded, that in fact e-commerce had suffered a major increase in recent years. Regarding the offline trading no significant barriers were found that limited its option, in the scope of VAT. On the other hand, the online commerce faces a complex tax legislation which means that updates are needed in order to keep up with the improvement and innovation of technologies.

Date of Award	13 Jul 2018
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Luísa Anacoreta (Supervisor)