French ebooks: what should the VAT rate be?

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By Paul Biba

Publishing Perspectives notes this question being discussed in the latest issue of ESPRIT magazine by Pascale Fouche – bibliographer and editor of the Dictionnaire encyclopedique du livre. Fouche does not want a lower rate of VAT extended to ebooks:

“A book is an item, printed on paper, which serves the dissemination of ideas,” he writes, “This fiscal definition was used to establish a reduced V.A.T. rate on books. This is why an advertising brochure with less than 48 pages is not a book –- and so on. But according to this definition, the printing process is constitutive to the book. As a result the digital data which is sold as ‘Ebooks’ does not benefit from the lower rate of V.A.T.”

The full article, in French, is here.

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