'So Much Uncertainty' Still Surrounds Potential E-Commerce Duties, Experts Say

Katrin Kuhlmann, a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University, and Devi Ariyani, the executive director of the Indonesia Service Dialogue Council, both said they hope the World Trade Organization's moratorium on e-commerce duties is extended, during a Peterson Institute for International Economics event on Oct. 18. Although the moratorium has been regularly extended since 1998, a few countries are preparing to introduce tariffs on digitally transferred goods before the moratorium's expiration in March 2024, Cecilia Malmström, a nonresident senior fellow at PIIE, said at the event.

"There's still so much uncertainty" about what the duties should be, "how they would be applied, how they would be administered, and we don't have legal disciplines in this area," Kuhlmann said. "I think we're talking about lifting something when there are no legal disciplines on how it would work."

One problem with the moratorium, which was extended last year (see 2206170010), is that there is "no common understanding" of what qualifies as an electronic transmitted good, "what scope does it entail and what's the definition of digital goods," Ariyani said. Having a more concrete definition is important because it will "measure the impact of [taxing] digital goods if we know already what's the definition and the scope of the digital goods."