And those taxes will get passed on to the customer, guaranteed.
France may tax publications protected by DRM at a higher rate
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Re: France may tax publications protected by DRM at a higher rate
#12What happens when one buys an electronic book from outside France ( http://bookscanner.us ) ? Who pays the tax and when?
This is off-topic, but it pains me to see that they shred and recycle the books rather than donating them to schools/libraries.
Re: France may tax publications protected by DRM at a higher rate
#13Yeah, thought that was a great idea and was happy that the law was voted... and two days after, Assembly voted an article cancelling this one, pushed by the government. A big lobbyism at work and a "Europe won't like it and will condemn us" excuse. Our government has no balls.
It is not an excuse, a member can't change the type of VAT applied to products
I know that but that's not really my point. We already changed the type of VAT on this. Bit of context for better understanding (sorry for the length):
Point of the law article was to say digital products with DRMs and platform locking aren't really products selling, but renting services instead, and so must be taxed as such. On the other hand, ebooks without DRMs and platform locks are technically books, even if not printed, and so must fall into the book tax class, which has a lower rate.
But at the moment, at European Commission level, ebooks are all, DRM or not, considered as services and not eligible to lower tax rates.
However, in 2012, France and Luxembourg kind of said "fuck off" to Europe on this point, and both put the VAT rate on ebooks (with and without DRMs) in the book category. For that those countries are under procedure from European Court and must justify enough the case if they don't want to be fined. The debate is on, and may cause a change on this at European level.
Our government estimated that the law article making the distinction between DRMised and not DRMised products didn't come at the right time regarding the ongoing debate.
And that's what baffles me: the "show up my balls" move had already be done, and this law article was in my opinion a good way to show that we're thinking about what we do, and are not directed by Amazon-leaded lobby on the tax rate choice, because it excluded them of it. And that could have been a good argument over the European Court: we make our choices because of their logical nature, not because of external pressure. The retractation however, shows the opposite.
Re: France may tax publications protected by DRM at a higher rate
#14Add to that the fact that Amazon is subsidizing Kindle device buyers, by asking all the other foreigners to pay an extra $2 for each e-book, making e-books much more expensive for the vast majority of Kindle ebook buyers:
http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/amazon-hold-ba...
Re: France may tax publications protected by DRM at a higher rate
#15What happens when one buys an electronic book from outside France ( http://bookscanner.us ) ? Who pays the tax and when?
This is off-topic, but it pains me to see that they shred and recycle the books rather than donating them to schools/libraries.
That would be a copyright violation. The only way to avoid the charge is to destroy the original, so that they can claim no real copy has been made, just a transfer of format.
Re: France may tax publications protected by DRM at a higher rate
#16What happens when one buys an electronic book from outside France ( http://bookscanner.us ) ? Who pays the tax and when?
This is off-topic, but it pains me to see that they shred and recycle the books rather than donating them to schools/libraries.
They do shred+recycle, but they can not donate. Its all about copyright laws! :(
Re: France may tax publications protected by DRM at a higher rate
#17What happens when one buys an electronic book from outside France ( http://bookscanner.us ) ? Who pays the tax and when?
The same as buying anything else from a different country. If it is bought from another EU country thencvat is collected by the company. From memory if it is bought from outside the EU/EEA then the customer is supposed to pay the tax when it is imported
Re: France may tax publications protected by DRM at a higher rate
#18This is the same in the Netherlands - VAT on ebooks is 21% ("luxury goods"), normal books are at the 6% rate (same as household goods, foods, etc). Then again, there are more strange classifications in any tax schedule - hamster food is taxed at 21%, rabbit food at 6% (rationale supposedly being rabbits are food too...) and fixing a moped is 21%, but a bike is 6%.
The only problem I have with an analyzed/conditional tax system is the legitimacy of the party in charge of collecting it. Everyone can nod their heads at taxing vehicles more than bicycles, but if that additional government income goes into tax breaks for certain corporations, or bad social policies (everyone thinks there's one!). This is why I enjoy flat taxes, so we can focus more on the policies that money provid…
Ah yes - flat sales tax - County XYZ needs a new courthouse so decides to raise sales tax 0.5% within city limits. Not only more complicated, but doesn't seem very fair either. Our taxes are easier than the US system because it's a national tax.
My main problem with this tax strategy is that we're "protecting" an industry (book publishers, sellers, etc) that's in decline and probably will stay that way. Taxing ebooks more isn't going to change that - the economics of bits vs printed pages are ofcourse also inverse as these tax rules.
Re: France may tax publications protected by DRM at a higher rate
#19This is the same in the Netherlands - VAT on ebooks is 21% ("luxury goods"), normal books are at the 6% rate (same as household goods, foods, etc). Then again, there are more strange classifications in any tax schedule - hamster food is taxed at 21%, rabbit food at 6% (rationale supposedly being rabbits are food too...) and fixing a moped is 21%, but a bike is 6%.
The only problem I have with an analyzed/conditional tax system is the legitimacy of the party in charge of collecting it. Everyone can nod their heads at taxing vehicles more than bicycles, but if that additional government income goes into tax breaks for certain corporations, or bad social policies (everyone thinks there's one!). This is why I enjoy flat taxes, so we can focus more on the policies that money provid…
There's no functional difference between a flat tax with tax credits to booksellers than an equivalent reduction in sales tax. Conditional tax systems are policy.
Re: France may tax publications protected by DRM at a higher rate
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only problem I have with an analyzed/conditional tax system is the legitimacy of the party in charge of collecting it. Everyone can nod their heads at taxing vehicles more than bicycles, but if that additional government income goes into tax breaks for certain corporations, or bad social policies (everyone thinks there's one!). This is why I enjoy flat taxes, so we can focus more on the policies that money provid…
Ah yes - flat sales tax - County XYZ needs a new courthouse so decides to raise sales tax 0.5% within city limits. Not only more complicated, but doesn't seem very fair either. Our taxes are easier than the US system because it's a national tax. My main problem with this tax strategy is that we're "protecting" an industry (book publishers, sellers, etc) that's in decline and probably will stay that way. Taxing ebooks…
The higher tax is not on all ebooks. It is on DRM'd ebooks in particular. The goal, as far as I can tell from the translated article, is to discourage DRM and "licensing" of content, and encourage DRM free formats.