From The Bookseller:
The EU’s Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin) today agreed on a proposal which will allow all member states to give e-books and audiobooks the same VAT-free status as printed books. The UK Publishers Association has immediately called for the UK government to use the new powers.
The new rules don’t force EU member states to align the rates, but allow them to.
The European Commission said the measure would “allow Member States to align the VAT rates they set for e‑publications, currently taxed at the standard rate in most Member States, with the more favorable regime currently in force for traditional printed publications” It added: “Today’s decision is the final step to ensure that the unequal treatment of the two products - paper versus digital - becomes a thing of the past.”
In the UK, aligning e-books with printed books would mean a 20% reduction in the tax currently applied to digital publications, which is not applied to print publications. Read the rest of the story on The Bookseller.