During this month's ALLi Insights, Orna Ross unraveled the confusion around #VATMOSS with essential insights from Henry Hyde and Juliet McKenna.
You'd be forgiven for thinking this EU VAT discussion is a dry topic and one that couldn't hold your attention for very long. But this trio did an amazing job of disproving my assumption.
I was gripped (yes I truly was) through the entire online event. Not only was the EU VAT topic presented in an engaging and entertaining way – but if you're an author-publisher selling your digital products across EU borders you need to know how this topic affects you.
New EU guidelines, which came into effect in January 2015, switch VAT obligations from where the supplier is based to where the purchaser is located.
As well as providing an overview of the EU legislation, Henry and Juliet offered solutions for indie authors and author-publishers and gave a clear summary of how we need to get involved.
ALLi Insights You Tube Video
ALLi Insights SoundCloud Podcast
Fact Sheet by Henry Hyde
What can YOU do?
If you would like to help make a difference in this situation, there are a number of things you can do.
- Read the EU VAT action Website
- Sign the petition at Change.org
- Write to your local MP and regional MEP
- Write to the European Commission
- Hassle your payment provider and bank — high street banks need to know that thousands of their customers will be affected
- Join in the discussions at the EU VAT Action Facebook Group
- Join in the Twitter discussions using the #EUVAT and #VATMOSS hashtags
- Write, email or call your local newspapers and radio stations pointing out how local micro-businesses are threatened by this.
Where can I watch or listen to more ALLi Insights?
- You can catch up on all of our videos on ALLi’s YouTube Channel
- You can listen to all of our podcasts at ALLi’s SoundCloud Channel
[…] Anyway, enough of the dull stuff, time to talk tax!! Specifically VAT (value added tax, the levy charged to the final consumer in any chain of production tha tleads to the creation of a product or service). Mention VAT on ebooks and most people get somewhat indignant – paper books are zero VAT, after all, but ebooks are “digital products” and as such incur VAT. Mention the European Union (EU) and VAT and writers will either go into a cold sweat or a hot rage (google VAT MOSS [MOSS is mini one stop shop – the go-to place for any business wanting to sort out VAT under the new regulations] to see just how much of a rage), because from 1 January 2015 it became law across the EU for suppliers to charge VAT to customers based on the customer’s country. What that meant for suppliers (that’s us) was that they had to identify the origin of every customer from within the EU and charge the appropriate rate. Whilst large distribution platforms such as Amazon have done the work for us, for many the nightmare is still real (this is a very helpful ALLi podcast on VAT MOSS). […]
I have just realised this is tomorrow and I’ll miss it because I’ll be teaching an evening class, dammit – I assume it will be available on YouTube later?
Hello Lorna … it was an brilliant ALLi Insights event today. I’ve embedded the You Tube Video into the post, and will be adding the podcast later in the month. Have a watch and let me know your thoughts….