EU: Tele-shopping and commerce

The European Parliament has adopted the Mann report on electronic commerce and tele-shopping, voting in favour of a resolution which welcomed new initiatives to promote electronic trading. Industry Commissioner Martin Bangemann said that the question of taxation of transactions on the Internet had been raised and that the Commission would need to find a solution that would not restrict the development of this industry: “Any taxation of purchases on the Internet must not be discriminatory, and needs to be in line with taxation for other types of commerce,” said Bangemann.