Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Overcharging Publishers For Tax
00_NOP writes "Amazon is taking fire in the UK for insisting that publishers pay them for 20% VAT (sales tax) when in fact the online retailer is only paying 3% VAT. 'The firm is able to wield such power over publishers because it has a near monopoly of the UK digital book publishing market. According to reliable estimates, it sells nine out of 10 ebooks in the UK, while using its Luxembourg tax status to wring more profitable terms from publishers. ... In private, British authors and publishers express fears that Amazon's dominance will send the industry into further decline.' Given that the Kindle is rubbish at displaying maths and science and that Amazon is as dangerous a monopoly as Microsoft ever was, is it not time that regulators and consumers stood up to them?"
Amazon is also facing criticism right now for allegedly shutting down a woman's account and remotely wiping her Kindle, then refusing to provide information about why it did so.
Publishers insisting on DRM, engaging in infighting, and pushing multiple incompatible standards have given Amazon a device monopoly just like music publishers gave Apple. It's stupidity because they had five years to see what was coming. It's publishers monopolistic greed that enabled Amazon's position, and Jeff Bezos is laughing all the way to the bank.
* http://www.defectivebydesign.org/amazon-kindle-swindle
* http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/the-danger-of-ebooks.html
The better question is why are ebooks subjected to VAT in the first place when printed books are not.
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/uk-government-holds-firm-e-book-vat.html
in a written response reiterated the government's position "Under EU law, VAT on electronic books must be charged at the standard rate. A reduced rate cannot be applied to digital or electronic supplies, or supplies of text via the internet, as they are classed as supplies of services rather than physical goods. There is therefore no scope in the principal VAT directive to apply a reduced rate on e-books."
"Amazon is also facing criticism right now for allegedly shutting down a woman's account and remotely wiping her Kindle, then refusing to provide information about why it did so."
This is the exact reason why I strip the DRM from every Kindle book I buy and then store them in my own offline repository. Should Amazon ever decide to wipe my account I'll still have the books I purchased. The other advantage is I can use any e-reader I want w/o being locked to a Kindle.
Surely this is merely a matter of tax laws that lawyers and judges are perfectly well equiped to solve?
If Amazon is a Luxembourg company, than this should be no different from any other Luxembourg company buying and selling products outside Luxembourg borders. Europe has tax laws in place regarding intra-community trade; neither Amazon nor the publisher's opinions matter.
The summary, once again, is not very clear. In fact the Guardian article isn't 100% clear either, but what appears to be the case is that for a product with an intended retail price of £10 in the UK where VAT is 20%, the base UK price would be £10 / (120%) = £8.33. Amazon allegedly insists on negotiating with UK publishers starting with a base price of £8.33. However, in Europe, Amazon is a Luxembourg company and the VAT rate there is 3% for these products. The base price for a retail price of £10 would be £10 / (103%) = £9.71.
I don't think it is really the case that Amazon is "charging them VAT" so tax law doesn't really matter - it would be more accurate to say that they are allegedly insisting on at least an extra 17% discount, and hoping that the publishers don't notice that this is not in fact part of the VAT adjustment. Or alternatively, Amazon is accused of keeping all the tax savings it makes by setting up in the EU's lowest VAT area, Luxembourg, and not sharing them with the publishers.