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by lozenge 1590 days ago
Amazon sold all e books from Luxembourg to UK customers, charging them 3% VAT. When calculating royalties for publishers though, their contracts stipulated the 20% VAT rate would be used to reduce royalties. According to The Guardian, some received just 10% of the purchase price, similar to what Audible(also Amazon owned) is being accused of. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/oct/21/amazon-fo...

Uber also sold UK journeys to UK customers but put the fare calculation taximeter in a server in another country to avoid the 20% VAT. I believe they actually won that case as in the EU, VAT is calculated by the seller using their country's laws regardless of the buyer's country's VAT rates and laws.

1 comments

Since 2015, VAT on eBooks is charged according to the buyer's country, see e.g. https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/electronically-supplie... This is also reflected on my invoices from Amazon.

VAT law is harmonized across the EU, which country's rate is applicable is based on a rather complex (and ever changing) set of rules, but nowadays it's mostly the buyer's country.