Electronic Taxable Person – The Last Stage of Evolution of Taxpayer’s Personality? // Elektronska oporeziva osoba – posljednja etapa evolucije personalnosti poreskog obveznika?

Abstract

A taxpayer is a person who is required by law to pay the tax. Historically, a taxpayer has been a physical entity since the appearance of tax, before the new era, by the end of 19th century, when the appearance of corporations led to the spread of the term of taxpayer to legal entities. The development of modern concepts of taxation resulted in the acceptance of a group of personally connected individuals with the taxpayer of income tax, and later groups of legal entities with a single taxpayer of VAT and income tax. The development of digitization, telecommunications and robotics has recently stirred up a debate on a new category of taxpayers – robots and a new concept of electronic tax capacity. The essence of the idea is the standpoint of the tax neutrality, that is, the equal tax treatment of work, regardless of whether the work is performed by a man or a robot. The new work taxation concept should, on the one hand, eliminate the current tax discrimination of labor-intensive companies in relation to automated companies, and, on the other hand, replace the lost revenues from taxation of man’s work. Acceptance of the concept of electronic tax capacity and personalization of robots for tax purposes basically results in a thorough redefinition of the basic postulates of taxation theory.