Hoping an international tax expert is lurking...Who gets the tax?

[mjbdreamer]

I wonder if any Fools know the answer to today's vexatious issue:

A video streaming system is installed on an aircraft flying from Singapore to Paris. The system is enabled once at cruising altitude, miles from Singapore probably.
A passenger, accesses the system over WiFi and pays, through the system, a mere $5 for the service and enjoys films etc until the plane starts descent and the system is disabled.
Once the plane lands, the $5 is sent through a payment maze and ends up settled in the bank account of UK based “Company Z” who handle funds as the merchant of record for the business.

Is sales tax due on the $5? If due, where is the sales tax paid?

[gryffron]

I am not the expert you are looking for, but...
Since they sell duty free goods on board international flights, the same must surely apply to services bought onboard. I would assume no tax.

Gryff

[mjbdreamer]

Hi Gryff and thanks.

Only duty free goods are treated as duty free (and even that's a con job where '£10+vat' becomes '£12 duty free special offer'!!)).
GST/VAT is due on the rest sadly.

I got a private message response that helped. It depends on place of supply, their taxes apply. So a flight supplying mid-pacific sounds like tax free so the smart people decided the place of supply for a flight is the origin of the flight. Flight (one aircraft route) from A to B to C to A, all onboard sales are due to pay tax to country where A is located.