Cross-border E-commerce in Russia: Tax Challenges and Ways of Improvement

Today we could notice the increasing expansion of the digital economy what happens parallel to the economy becoming more and more digital. Nowadays the fact that customers can buy online from suppliers who are situated remotely from them, means that non-residents turn out to be beyond the tax system and causes a great threat for indirect tax incomes and their collection. Russia is one of countries with the largest volumes of import in the world, and the certain tax challenges are on agenda and addressed by the government, tax services, e-commerce associations, companies, research organizations. The study aims to analyze the existing mechanisms of taxation of cross-border e-commerce and give recommendations on the introduction/modernization of certain methods of e-commerce taxation in Russia by means of research methods, the key one was interviews with experts. We have found experts’ view on the necessity of tax regulation and tax challenges, key trends, ways for enhancement, which have not been mentioned in previous studies. For instance, it was found out that it’s probably not necessary to implement a separate tax legislation or a special tax regime for e-commerce. Moreover, as a result of the research a method of data collection in e-commerce was proposed, probability of introduction of new measures for two research questions was appreciated according to experts’ opinion and the analysis of the best practices.