[mytailorisrich]

The thing is that one cannot 'choose' to apply a higher or lower VAT rate.

I would think that knowingly charging for VAT that isn't due may be considered fraud because they tell their customers to pay extra for tax when they know the money isn't tax and will go into their pocket.

[detaro]

It doesn't necessarily follow that they pocket the money - if they truly do not make a distinction between products and treat everything the same, one would expect them to pay the full amount to the tax authorities - who generally have less of a problem with being given too much money. This classification can be tricky - an e-book that qualifies for lower rate in country A might not qualify for the lower rate in country B, despite B having a lowered rate for other e-books, so it might make some business sense to just always use the higher rate, not spend money on evaluating this case-by-case and avoid getting in trouble for paying to little tax.

That said, under national laws you might very well have a right to correct billing, and could demand a corrected invoice. Good luck enforcing that effectively against a US company though for small sums.

[gbon]

In EU you have to pay the VAT required by the law of customer's country. So, yes, tha law if different for each country in EU. Here, for example, an elegible e-book must have an ISBN code. That is the requirement. Amazon applies correctly the taxes. Gumroad think to be different. Moreover, Amazon explains transparently how the taxes are applied on their websites.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

[mytailorisrich]

Sure, never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence, even when the incompetence is off the scale.

Enforcing any right to correct in this case is hard but collecting all the evidence and tipping off the tax authorities about VAT irregularities can be a sweet revenge as well.

[gbon]

I want only purchase the ebook paying the right price, without be bullied by anyone (Gumroad or other monopolists).

[gbon]

Before contacting them, I asked to Paypal: they confirmed that the VAT applied is specified by the seller (Gumroad). So I suspect a fraud, too. It depends from who really collect the VAT and who have to pay that tax to the EU country. In any case their behaviour is questionable.