The Digital Economy, Digital Financial Inclusion, and Digital Taxation in the Industry 4.0: A South African Perspective

There is a general claim that digital financial inclusion is important for balancing gender differences and inequality and favorably influences economic development, according to existing literature. Results from all over the world support the claim that financial inclusion enables the poor and financially excluded to enhance their quality of life and sustainably grow their businesses. It offers financial products that are more affordable, accessible, and safe. Taxing the digital economy has become a hot topic around the world even before the pandemic because of the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s technologies’ rapid rise in the digital economy. Around the world, there has been a lot of work done on taxation proposals for the digital economy in general. To better understand the connections between the digital economy, digital taxes, and digital financial inclusion from the standpoint of South Africa, this chapter investigated such topics. This chapter discusses trust in digital financial services as well as the usage of digital financial services in the digital economy and the taxing of the digital economy. It was found in the chapter that taxing the digital economy could have detrimental effects especially on digital financial inclusion since the disadvantaged people who utilize these services might lose faith in them.