Crafting a Model for Taxing Digital Financial Services

The taxation of mobile money (MM) and other digital financial services (DFS) is a multifaceted and evolving issue. It has become a significant concern and source of controversy over the last decade. As yet, there is no universally accepted standard approach to taxing DFS, but the complexity of the issues underscores the need for a clear and holistic framework. While much has been written about tax and DFS, direct guidance to policy-makers is scarce; other than, perhaps, to avoid taxing them at all (GSMA 2023a, 2023b; Vodafone 2023).

In this policy brief we aim to fill that gap, and offer some brief but specific thoughts about how a tax regime for DFS might be constructed, drawing on experience from the DIGITAX research programme. We do not claim that our model is comprehensive, or that the evidence base for it is complete, but we believe it is preferable to leaving a vacuum in policy guidance.