The South Centre Tax Initiative (SCTI) submitted its comments in October 2020 to the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters (UN Tax Committee, UNTC) on a discussion paper[1] that examined whether payments for software should be taxable as royalties. Developing countries within the UNTC have for long been pushing for taxing software payments as royalties as this is more sensible from a policy perspective and also makes it easier to collect taxes. The rise in software sales post COVID has added urgency to settle this long-pending discussion as developing countries are in dire need of funds.

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