Amazon To Cut Price of its Ebooks in UK To Reflect Removal of VAT (theguardian.com) 23
Amazon has confirmed it will cut the price of its Kindle ebooks from Friday, after the government announced it would bring forward plans to stop charging VAT on online publications because of the pandemic. From a report: The decision to remove the 20% VAT charged on online news subscriptions and books will bring them in line with their physical equivalents, which have always been zero-rated. Amazon said customers would very shortly start to notice the change, which will see the cost a $12.6 ebook reduced to $10.5.
"For titles where Amazon sets the price, we will reduce the prices of books not already on promotion," said a spokesperson. "After receiving today's notification, we are working as fast as possible to lower prices for customers."
VAT in USD? (Score:2)
Re:VAT in USD? (Score:4, Funny)
So policy is working by design? (Score:3)
If you remove taxes on a product then a product can sell for cheaper. US tends to tack on sales tax after the purchase, this isn't common to the rest of the world, where taxes are part of the price.
I guess amazon could keep the prices the same and make more profit off each book. However is it really worth getting investigated over this with the EU.
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The UK isn't in the EU anymore. They left beginning of the year. The only thing is that they haven't figured out how to leave quite yet, so they're agreed to keep things that involve the EU status quo. Since tax policy is now independent, they're free to impose their own regime.
Makes sense too since you can't exactly go to a bookstore and buy a book nowadays, and Amazon can't really sell you books either. So you're stuck with electronic
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If you remove taxes on a product then a product can sell for cheaper. US tends to tack on sales tax after the purchase, this isn't common to the rest of the world, where taxes are part of the price.
The mere existence of sales taxes tends to be part of the price of goods and services in the USA - even for products such as food that are officially 'not taxed' in many jurisdictions.
The price inflation caused by government is just hidden. People don't see it so they don't realize it's there (mostly because they don't understand how businesses and the economy work and the real cost of goods and services).
Relatively few businesses sell only tax-exempt goods or only provide tax-exempt services.
As such, for
Not just pandemic (Score:2, Interesting)
Several times UK and several other EU members who had zero rated VAT books grandfathered in for educational purposes asked for ebooks to be reclassified as books rather than digital services and were denied every time. So this is only possible due to brexit allowing it being done without asking for EU approval.
Re:Not just pandemic (Score:5, Informative)
Several times UK and several other EU members who had zero rated VAT books grandfathered in for educational purposes asked for ebooks to be reclassified as books rather than digital services and were denied every time. So this is only possible due to brexit allowing it being done without asking for EU approval.
The EU allowed the removal of VAT on books [thebookseller.com] in 2018... but I guess the UK government had to wait two years to implement it so they could con people into thinking that it was something to do with Brexit...
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Well, that is until we get to a treaty that said no zero-rating new stuff. That "directive" is more of an executive order (it did not pass through EU parliament), and so may not hold up in courts if it was challenged, and UK was on the Brexit path when it came in. But yes, UK had the plan to reclassify ebooks next year anyway.
Which would have been better for the UK, to reclassify after brexit where there can be no court challenge in EU courts bought by the other EU nations or reclassify before?
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Yes, it's a directive - issued in 2018 - that's how the EU works: the commission proposes, the parliament votes and then it issues directives and national governments implement them.
If you're suffering from insomnia, here's the directive [europa.eu]... if you read on you'll see that it's already been through the EU parliament and the EU Court of Justice and - if you google around a bit - you'll see that other states have already implemented it.
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No state has actually gone to 0% under it, and it is a "council directive" not a full directive (it did not go through the parliament). Finally the directive itself has never been questioned in the courts.
I have already read it. And read the bit at the top which says "council directive".
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And the rest (Score:2)
If Amazon want to be relieved of the VAT then they should be required to grant those rights. That might require an infrastructure to be able transfer some kind of ownership token, but it is not rocket science. And governments should be forcing industry down this path whether it
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If Amazon want to be relieved of the VAT then they should be required to grant those rights.
Amazon don't profit from the VAT - the customer pays.
TFS is slightly confusing but the Government has removed VAT from books (...actually the EU allowed it in 2018 [thebookseller.com] but Boris would like you to think it was thanks to Brexit...) It was announced last month and was scheduled to take effect in December but it has been brought forward ...sounds like Amazon is cutting prices a bit early but TFA is fuzzy on that. Once the law changes, it will apply to digital booksellers whether or not they impose DRM.
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Governments should be giving them the choice - abide by a legal definition of digital property (incl right to loan, sell books) and don't get 20% tax or stay put and do. Customers are obviously going to gravitate to the cheaper option so there is an incentive to comply. What governments should not do is just cave-in and
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I KNOW they don't profit and never said they did. But they do have to price their "books" 20%+ higher in because they are selling a licence (which incurs tax) and not a book which doesn't.
It's nothing to do with whether they're selling a license or a "copy". All sales of goods/services/licenses are/were subject to VAT unless they are specifically exempt - physical books are exempt,"electronically supplied publications" [europa.eu] are not. If you sell digital "copies" of books (and have more than £70k - or whatever it is now - annual turnover) then you have to pay VAT on sales.
I get it - you want the government to use VAT as a lever to force sellers to drop restrictive licenses - but VAT legis
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Instead you are buying a software licence that grants right to see the book. You do not own the book in perpetuity or the right to sell / loan or donate it.
Anybody buying one of my ebooks can keep it forever, and in principle they have the right to sell it, to loan it and to donate it.
Realistically they have the capability too. I don't use DRM on my books. So some people will take advantage of that, and some people will seek to exercise their rights without retaining their own copy, and most people will just recommend it to friends.
I do know that the print versions are being passed around many people. Which is cool, it means people want their friends to read i
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I don't sign an EULA when I buy a physical book and I should not have to sign one when I buy a digital book. Digital currencies and blockchains are a thing so they could be applied to digital property, i.e. I get given a token when I buy a book and I can transfer that token temporarily or permanently. The token is checked by software before it opens the book. It shouldn't be hard to reduce piracy and
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You don't sign an EULA when you buy one of my ebooks either.
Digital currencies and blockchains are a thing so they could be applied to digital property, i.e. I get given a token when I buy a book and I can transfer that token temporarily or permanently. The token is checked by software before it opens the book.
Fuck you. I don't want DRM on my ebooks. I'm not signing up to some shitty system like that to make life harder for my customers.
. It shouldn't be hard to reduce piracy and illicit use to background levels, certainly much less than currently happens.
It already is at background levels. Shit, people happily buy things I've published online for free.
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Fuck you. I don't want DRM on my ebooks. I'm not signing up to some shitty system like that to make life harder for my customers.
Wow sensitive aren't you. And where did I say the books were DRM'd? Read what I wrote. And the reality is books are already DRM'd and without any right
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where did I say the books were DRM'd?
Here:
The token is checked by software before it opens the book.
My books do not have DRM. I will not sell them via channels that require DRM.
you are not buying a book, you are buying a licence
At a consumer level, you're buying a fucking book. At a practical level, you're paying for data structured in a form that's easily copied and transferrred, and interpretable by software as text that can be displayed in a readable way.
Either way, it's a book. Books in the UK don't have VAT on them because reading is considered a value to society and not a luxury. Being electronic should (and now does) make no difference.
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Precisely. Access to the book is restricted to the holder of the token.
In common parlance restricting access to a digital asset is known as DRM.
It's fucking DRM. Even a dipshit can work that out. Why can't you?