Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
And how is it that ebooks are assessed 18% VAT when dead trees books are only taxed at 4%? That makes no sense at all (as if any country's tax system does, of course).
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It's an European (EU-wide) thing, I think. Books with a physical medium (paper, CD, flash-drive, etc.) are considered cultural items and are taxed with a low VAT. Purely downloadable goods are "software" and are taxed with the normal VAT. Some months ago the Spanish government announced that they were going to apply the low VAT to ebooks too, but it's apparently not so easy, and something has to be changed in Europe first, according to the article, the government is still campaigning for this to happen.
Laws and religion: don't try to understand them
