VAT on eBooks
As a fan of the author, I’ve been waiting for the latest Stuart MacBride book Close to the Bone to be published, and it eventually came out a couple of weeks ago.
So I rushed on to Amazon
However, when I go on the site, I see that the Kindle edition costs £9.99, where as the hardback edition is only £7.00. So the electronic version, which you might reasonably think would cost less to produce, is £3 or 42% more expensive!
The justification for the price discrepancy is that eBooks are subject to VAT, whereas paper books are zero-rated. This, of course, is madness, because they’re essentially the same thing but in a different format – and the EU should sort out that mess sooner rather than later.
So, as it stands, I’m not going to buy the book, as I feel I’m getting ripped off. Although hopefully over time Amazon might decide to discount the Kindle book to a reasonable price, in which case I’ll think again.
Unfortunately it’s not clear how much tax you’re paying, and hence who is ripping you off by how much: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/24/amazon-tax-loophole-ebooks
Yeah, I saw the stories about how Amazon are charging customers 20% VAT but only paying VAT at 3% – but also a story about how the EU are forcing France and Luxembourg to up their discounted VAT rate on eBooks to the same as the rest of europe.