Taxation of Instagram Influencers

Abstract

This scientific article discusses issues related to the taxation of Instagram influencers. Its main objective is to define how the influencers’ incomes should be taxed. To achieve this primary purpose, the partial objective is defined to give the list of (legal) cooperation contracts between the marketers and influencers. The hypothesis that there is no need to adopt new specific tax law norms to tax influencers’ incomes properly, at least in developed countries, was confirmed. All jurisdictions are taxing influencers’ incomes. It is always necessary to focus on the content of the relationship generating influencer’s income, as the principle of priority of content over form must be used. The tax liability is influenced only by the tax base. The tax rate and other structural components of the tax remain the same for different types of incomes. Generally, it is always better for the influencer to have a trading license (to be a businessman) than tax his/her incomes as incomes from copyright. Incomes from dependent activities based on labour law contract or occasional incomes are not probable for a typical influencer, and still, the taxation in this way is not really favourable. The novelty of the presented research lies in the fact that no scientific articles deal with the covered issues published so far. The author believes that the article has a cognitive value for both science and practice.