E-commerce and Tax Compliance During Covid-19 Pandemic: The Emerging Global Issue from the University Perspective

Abstract

Despite the high volume of e-commerce trading and revenue generation across different countries of the world, the owners and users of online e-commerce platforms are concealing and maneuvering online business transactions before and during the Covid-19 pandemic leading to under remittance of tax contributions to the relevant tax authorities or avoiding the tax payments. This leads to a serious financial deficit to the governments before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Several research efforts were carried out to tackle the menace but were more concentrated on a few industrial economic sectors leaving the universities and the private sectors still pending some vital information and solutions. It was recommended among others that the Nigerian government should collaborate with the national and international e-commerce platform providers to track and checkmate various online trading activities toward ensuring that the users and the providers remit their tax levies to the appropriate tax administrators at an appropriate time and rate.