Taxing the Cloud

In Hong Kong, I had a very interesting meeting with KPMG.

We looked at the business model and started talking about Microsoft's Azure platform. As previous postings to this blog will verify, this is Pingar's preferred hosting platform.

Most of the discussions I have had around 'Cloud Computing' relate to technical issues. The meeting with KPMG highlighted another - tax.

If one follows the basic Microsoft Azure premise that server and broadband capacity can be replicated across multiple servers as demand requires, it is quite possible that e-commerce transactions could be transacted across numerous locations. That leads to some interesting tax-related scenarios. This is not a discussion I have had before.

At this point, I do not know enough about the Azure platform, to understand how the system might manage this process. Sure as hell, if the IRD or IRS come knocking on the door, we will need to be able to audit and date stamp each transaction. This is going to lead to some interesting conversations. Starting now.

More about this particular line of enquiry as I process through it.