This petition was submitted during the 2010-2015 parliament
Rejected petition Remove VAT from sales of electronic books.
More details
Printed books are not subject to VAT, however VAT is charged on electronic books.Sales of electronic books are growing and will soon outstrip those of printed books. This VAT inconsistency could be seen as a way of introducing tax on books by the back door.
This petition requests that VAT is no longer charged on sales of electronic books. This is allowed under EU law (see below).
The EU has passed a special measure allowing member countries to charge a reduced VAT rate on "any similar physical medium that predominantly reproduce the same textual information content as printed books", from January 2011. The EU has made it clear that should any country choose to apply the reduced rate early it won't take action against them.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
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