ARTICLE · 15 NOVEMBER 2013

The Negative Impact Of E-Commerce Vaton Education

DLA Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr

Explore more from DLA Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr

Educational institutions making exempt supplies will likely be negatively impacted with the impending introduction of VAT on e-commerce transactions in South Africa with effect from 1 April 2014.

South AfricaTax

Ruaan Van Eeden

Educational institutions making exempt supplies will likely be negatively impacted with the impending introduction of VAT on e-commerce transactions in South Africa with effect from 1 April 2014.

One could even go as far to say that educational institutions had it good under the reverse charge mechanism (also referred to as VAT on 'imported services') as there was arguably no VAT leakage when dealing with foreign suppliers of certain e-commerce services.

Environmental concerns, technology advancements and access to information are all contributing factors to the way in which university students, in particular, embrace the digital libraries offered by educational institutions. Students are able to access extensive amounts of information from electronic databases made available by universities and sourced from foreign suppliers. There is however a concern that the introduction of VAT on e-commerce transactions could have a knock-on effect on the cost of

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