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What happens when one buys an electronic book from outside France ( http://bookscanner.us ) ? Who pays the tax and when?
Having DRM is not the cause of higher VAT, is being an electronic document what makes the VAT being the standard and not the reduced one. And it is and European categorization, all the countries members of the EU must use that VAT
This law plays on that distinction, considering that DRMed books are licences hence should be subject to 20% VAT while non DRMed books are indeed books hence subject to low tax.
This 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…
That's only true in an absolute sense, but not in a relative sense. For a person making minimum wage, each dollar is worth significantly more to that person than someone making 6 figures a year. Moreover, they must ultimately spend more of their income on purchases subject to a sales tax. Thus, the person making minimum wage ends up paying a larger portion of their wealth in taxes, even though it is the person making 6 figures a year (or more) who actually derives greater value (relative and absolute) from the government services funded by those taxes.
A flat tax may be conceptually easy to understand, but it is not economically or morally equitable.
Right now in the UK, VAT is at 20% on ebooks as it is for any other standard rate item. Physical books and magazines are at 0%. Most people won't be paying this though, as sites like Amazon sell from Luxembourg where VAT on eBooks is 3% ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId... ). This can mean that providing a digital product (this recently came up with the Linux Voice IndieGoGo http://www.in…
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2013/09/18/new-tax-rules-e...
This 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%.
Having DRM is not the cause of higher VAT, is being an electronic document what makes the VAT being the standard and not the reduced one. And it is and European categorization, all the countries members of the EU must use that VAT
What 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
See for example http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/arriving/arrivingnoneu.htm (that's for the UK, but AFAIK these rules are standardized across the EU. At least, http://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/bldcontenten/b... is very similar)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier 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…
Everyone is equal in terms of the percentage of product consumers must pay in taxes, for their product. That's only true in an absolute sense, but not in a relative sense. For a person making minimum wage, each dollar is worth significantly more to that person than someone making 6 figures a year. Moreover, they must ultimately spend more of their income on purchases subject to a sales tax. Thus, the person making mi…
> For a person making minimum wage, each dollar is worth significantly more to that person than someone making 6 figures a year.
I believe you're referring to "Marginal Propensity to Consume". But MPC is evaluated with respect to dollar-amounts, not percentages like you imply. A dollar bill is tangible, but a percentage is a ratio, which is abstract. So I feel like you're comparing apples to oranges. I.e. a "flat tax" vs a "flat tax rate".
Under a flat tax rate, minimum wage earners are more sensitive to dollar changes, but also pay less total dollars. Does the former compensate for the latter? Moot. But let's not forget that a flat tax rate would simplify the tax code and more conspicuously expose loopholes.
Elegance and simplicity are often unnecessary and quixotic. But in this case, I think it's actually the progressive tax rate schemes which are unnecessary and quixotic. According to the U.S. Constitution, the purpose of a tax is to enable the U.S. Government to raise the funds necessary to continue operating, not to redistribute wealth. A flat tax rate and a progressive tax rate can accomplish this same goal, but a progressive tax rate is so needlessly arbitrary. Inevitably, a progressive tax rate graph looks more like an S-curve than a J-curve. This is due to the asymptote which arises because the domain is [0, inf) while the range is [0%, 100%].
If you're worried about the ethics of inequality, I think this is more aptly dealt with via tax returns and subsidies. I like to think of this as separating the core from the features.
And those taxes will get passed on to the customer, guaranteed.