2015 Means EU Tax Increase On Cloud Storage, E-books and Smartphone Applications

Posted by timothy on Friday January 2, 2015 @03:02AM from the takings-clause dept.

schwit1 writes With the new year, a change in fiscal rules in the European Union is increasing the tax on many purchases of digital content like e-books and smartphone applications. Under the new rules, first approved in 2008, the tax rate on digital services like cloud storage and movie streaming will be determined by where consumers live, and not where the company selling the product has its European headquarters. Tax experts say Europe's revamped rules could add up to an extra $1 billion in annual tax revenue for European governments.

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$1B in new tax revenue! by MikeRT · 2015-01-02 03:07 · Score: 5, Interesting

And how much in compliance costs? I've seen stats on the US federal income tax that put compliance costs at about $300B for businesses and individual filers. It's not necessarily the tax rate that hurts the economy so much as it is the paperwork burden. Tax rates may hurt, but they can at least be planned for in advance. It's all of the compliance work that costs incredible sums of money to keep everything in order.