UK to abolish VAT on ebooks

Brian G Turner

Brian G Turner

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A welcome announcement from the UK government today - sales taxes on ebooks and online periodicals will be abolished at the end of this year:
www.bbc.co.uk

Budget 2020: VAT on e-books and newspapers scrapped

The chancellor's decision is welcomed by publishers but does not extend to audiobooks.
www.bbc.co.uk

This brings the tax in line with physical books, magazines, and newspapers.

However, the change won't affect audiobooks, for some reason.
 
YAY! Although it won't make a vast difference in prices, it will make some difference. A welcome change and nice to see the law has been reviewed.


Now who among us is going to wait it out ? ;)
 
A surprise, and a good move.
 
Universities are going to love this. A lot of academic journals are eye-wateringly expensive. Any discount will be a help.
But I guess "production costs" will now increase by 10-15%?
 
CupofJoe said:
Universities are going to love this. A lot of academic journals are eye-wateringly expensive. Any discount will be a help.
But I guess "production costs" will now increase by 10-15%?
Click to expand...

Due to the reduction in VAT of 20% you will be glad to know that we've reduced prices on all our books by 20% to reflect this change. However due to the current economic climate our production costs have increased and the complexity of introducing the VAT reduction means that we are forced to raise our prices by 30% of the price before VAT was removed.
 
Good. Never could see the point in this, as it boils down to a tax on reading - which is always a bad idea.
 
It was never a actual choice to have VAT on them, more of an omission in dealing with new technology. I'm glad of this, but worried that other people are right and publishers will just use it as an excuse to increase their prices (like a lot of businesses did when the government temporary reduced all VAT a few years back to stimulate the economy).

Now they just need to give me actual ownership of the books and digital media that I darn well paid for...
 
And now it's done! The UK government have brought forward the legislation and it's active now:
www.bbc.co.uk

Coronavirus lockdown hastens e-book VAT exemption

Amazon says it will reduce prices but the Times newspaper subscription will remain the same.
www.bbc.co.uk

I went to Amazon to look through my wishlists, and a lot of the ebook have now dropped 17-22%. Which is especially welcome as a lot are academic books that routinely sell for at least £20, usually a lot more!
 
Brian G Turner said:
I went to Amazon to look through my wishlists, and a lot of the ebook have now dropped 17-22%. Which is especially welcome as a lot are academic books that routinely sell for at least £20, usually a lot more!
Click to expand...

And now a lot of them have gone back up to their previous prices. Publishers cashing in?
 
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