From the e-petition site in the UK:
E-BOOKS VAT ABOLITION
Responsible department: Her Majesty’s Treasury
Paper books are free from VAT despite their impact on the environment yet e-books carry 20% VAT. Paper books need oil based inks and glues, high energy use for paper production and printing, oil fuel for distribution and large land use for warehousing. At the end of their lives many find their way to landfill. E-books are far more environmentally friendly using a tiny fraction of the energy of a paper book for production, distribution and storage and at the end its life it is simply deleted. A book should be defined by what it provides not the material that is used to produce it and the more environmentally friendly version should be encouraged and not discouraged by VAT.
According to the site, which is an official, governmental one, you create a petition which will be checked by the government department that looks after the issue. The petition can be open for up to a year, the public can sign it and if the petition gets 100,000 signatures it “could be debated in the House of Commons”. So far 1,702 signatures have been collected and the petition closes on 05/08/2012.
Direct link follows as there are a few similar e-petitions that aren’t valid
https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/114
Also quite amused that one of the tags for this blog entry is “vatican”.
Autocorrect snuck in and changed VAT without my noticing. Ain’t technology grand.
Maybe the Pontiff is after cheaper eBibles in the UK
The higher VAT rate on e-books has a curious history. They were initially (and erroneously) classified as a service by the EU (back in the 90s if I remember right), and national governments had no power to classify them at the lower rate. Recently however, the EU allowed national governments to reclassify them if they wish. Few have followed suit. I believe France will be one of the first in 2012, and Spain has been working on a law for some time which will do the same.
While I wholeheartedly support this petition, I fear it will be of limited use, even if successful. Amazon trades out of Luxembourg, and as such, must apply Luxembourg rates (currently 15%) to all e-book sales in the EU. If the UK abolishes VAT on e-books, UK customers will still have to pay it if they buy through Amazon.
But all hope is not lost. For one, Amazon’s price matching policy may force them to swallow the VAT rate on certain titles. And, Luxembourg prides itself on having a “competitive” tax regime. If enough EU countries adopt the lower rate, then they may follow suit.
In the meantime (if the law is passed) there will be some opportunity for local publishers and retailers to undercut Amazon (who will be forced to apply VAT, or swallow it themselves).