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Comment by ruairinewman | Hacker News Reader

This is definitely a retrograde step, especially in countries such as the Republic of Ireland, where paper books are generally ascribed a 0% VAT rate. That doesn't protect us in regard to e-books however, as the specific legislative text refers to "printed matter", and defines some criteria that prevent e-books from taking advantage of this provision. There is also a clause in the relevant legislation that deals more specifically with "printed matter" that is purchased and downloaded via the internet, and states that it is "considered to be a service" and therefore liable to VAT at the standard rate.

Ref: http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/leaflets/printing-and-print...

I've written the usual letters to government ministers and to members of the European Parliament, but have been completely ignored in all cases, not unexpectedly. Unfortunately, I feel that this is going to be another measure pushed through the EP without any public consultation.

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It's up to member states to pass laws that exempt e-books from VAT.

Frankly Amazon, Google and the like have taken the piss by using Luxembourg as a tax haven for too long. It's right that VAT is charged in the consumers country.

So legally minimizing a tax bill by selecting an optimum location and passing some of that advantage onto customers (one of the reasons Amazon is popular) is 'taking the piss'?

Shipping from warehouses in the UK to UK consumers whilst completely sidestepping UK VAT charges is taking the piss.

is the full VAT tax displayed on the bill for all items purchased? Not being a member of EU or related I do not know how the amount of taxation is conveyed to the buyer so I am a bit curious

For my purchases from Amazon UK to EU-not-UK (where books are charged VAT) the bill information clearly shows the total before VAT, VAT and the final total.

I'm rather sure that it's mandatory. The thing that sucks is that the VAT-included price is visible only at the end of checkout, which is different than everything else - local stores and web-stores are required to advertise only tax-included prices. Possibly it's because the "same customer" may get different tax rates depending on where I choose to ship the item.

Advertised prices include VAT for all goods and services aimed at people. The price without VAT isn't usually shown. Goods and services aimed at businesses show prices excluding VAT (since the business doesn't pay it), but they make this clear. International shoppers might see the no-VAT prices on websites, I'm not sure.

This applies to websites and shops. Europeans will often be surprised in American shops that the tax is added on afterwards — I've had the exact change ready and been caught by this.

The line before "Total" on a receipt shows the amount of VAT paid. Many shops will "*" any items had different rates (things like basic food).

Pretty sure they pay UK VAT on physical goods. This article is referring to the changes in VAT for digital goods.

By the way, physical books are vat-free in the UK (presumably because it is seen as a good thing to encourage people to read), whereas e-books have always been standard VAT in the UK, making e-books less competitive.

Shipping books from UK warehouses to UK customers means that they're paying the 0% VAT that UK is currently requiring for physical books.

The only question is about e-books, which are sent to UK customers by a USA company from datacenters most likely in Ireland or Germany. You could argue that UK VAT should be paid whenever an UK customer buys a digital item from abroad, but it's a bit different argument than your post is making now.

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