New EU Legislation For ALL Digital Sellers

[k_a_webb]

Please, everyone, read this and share it around. http://euvataction.org/2014/12/12/vat-a-mess-new-eu-tax-rules-set-to-close-small-businesses/ We need as many people to sign the petition as possible.

Comments

Also...

[ysabetwordsmith]

People can make it clear that they won't sell to those countries. Which sucks, but is an option until all the countries have that stupid law.

Tax laws

[dialecticdreamer]

As an American selling on the web, do I have to store VAT information and all that crap?

I thought it was going to be difficult enough to sort through the changes in MY OWN taxable income, IN my own country.

I'm not making a product which gives BELGIUM any GDP. OR China. Or Egypt. I buy and sell FROM the US, so US tax laws should apply. Which are a big ENOUGH pain the butt, thank you.

But I do agree with Ysabetwordsmith; DO NOT SELL to countries with these kinds of policies.

Re: Tax laws

[ysabetwordsmith]

It may apply only to digital products such as ebooks, and not to things which are posted online for everyone to see. But then again they may be trying to tax everything.

I don't think the real aim is money. It's too hard to enforce, they'll never get more than a sliver of what it's aimed it. I think they're either trying to kill small businesses, which will work; or make lots more people break the law so they can be punished, which is easy on the first step and largely impractical on the second given international borders.

This kind of legislation is clearly a problem because it saws the bottom rungs off the ladder. Many people have turned to online business because THERE ARE NO JOBS. It's better to make a pittance selling knitted hats or ebooks than to have nothing at all. Any legislation which makes it so that only rich people and large corporations can make money is extremely dangerous. People tend not to starve to death quietly.

Re: Tax laws

[k_a_webb]

I wish I couldn't sell to them, but I'm in the midst of this. Being in the UK means I'm in a difficult position and the more signatures of the petition, which is linked to the post, the better. Anyone selling ebooks to the EU will be affected and the US already has a law in place that means businesses there have to collect VAT. Well, at least I think that's what it is. It's at the bottom of page 14 here: http://export.gov/europeanunion/build/groups/public/@eg_eu/documents/webcontent/eg_eu_079895.pdf and I have real difficulty speaking legalese at the moment.

This law was created in 2008. Most small businesses only heard about it in November. It becomes effective on the 1st of January. We're going to fight it as hard as we can, even if we can't do anything, because the plan is for this to spread to physical goods.

Re: Tax laws

[dialecticdreamer]

Sadly, I see no flaws in your logic.

It's clearly becoming /impossible/ to be independent /anything/ in the world.

But the point is that there will be /this man/ "law breakers and tax evaders" when thy ask for more funding. And that just means more police of various kinds. In this case, pocketbook police.

Re: Tax laws

[ysabetwordsmith]

I am also profoundly disturbed by the increasing efforts to track people's location and activities. Not only are vendors required to identify where buyers are from, but also to store that information -- and despite the order to store it "securely" online information is never really secure and most people can't afford good security. So it's Christmas for hackers and thieves.

Re: Tax laws

[dialecticdreamer]

This whole thing /is/ affecting my choices for /what/ I want to be paid for.

Right now, I'm thinking "pay to access the posted file" rather than "pay to buy an ebook."

It's a /major/ issue for me because I only want to break the laws I /deliberately/ choose to, rather than breaking them due to ignorance. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of thousands of TIMES more words in legal code than I can read in a lifetime right now. I don't need to know the laws governing say, the shipping of goods by rail, BUT, I also can't realistically read the law for /any/ single subject without a massive amount of interpretation and additions.

It's frustrating to the point that hubby and I have created a country for our gaming universe whose entire legal code fits in to a tradeback-size book with thirty-two pages. Period. Everything from traffic laws to malpractice is included, because the /basic law/ is simple.

Re: Tax laws

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>This whole thing /is/ affecting my choices for /what/ I want to be paid for.

Right now, I'm thinking "pay to access the posted file" rather than "pay to buy an ebook."<<

I'm increasingly suspicious that people in power are trying to create a situation where it's impossible to follow the law, with the intent of entrapment. Sadly this indicates a lack of historic and psychological understanding. Because when you make breaking the law normal and necessary for survival, that destroys the value of following the law, which leads to the collapse of your civilization. I prefer rational to irrational problem-solving methods, but I'm entirely aware of how the safety valves work. 0_o

>> It's frustrating to the point that hubby and I have created a country for our gaming universe whose entire legal code fits in to a tradeback-size book with thirty-two pages. <<

:D In my main SF setting, there are colonies with all different laws. Galactic laws cover the basics like "don't murder" and "don't steal." Each colony is allowed to designate 10 local laws they can enforce on non-residents, and that list is posted so everyone sees it before coming to that colony. It solves a lot of problems, at least with humans.

With aliens, the results are more hit-or-miss. Nobody's really managed to convince the Branchians to restrict their penile fencing to their own territory. They reproduce by rape, so it's understandable, but it really bothers most humans.

Re: Tax laws

[dialecticdreamer]

This is why /cash/ is still a thing.

No matter how convenient my electronic bill-paying is, some of that "convenience" is NOT for /my sake/. It's for the sake of police looking for "suspicious transactions."

Do they mean any transaction above 10,000 US dollars (when our annual SALARY isn't that much?0 OR something out of the ordinary for our family, which would be any transaction greater than 1k? Those laws are DENSE-- I've gotten through forty or so pages of /some/ laws... and that's never ALL of the law I'm interested in!

There /has/ to be some place for individual liberty ESPECIALLY on the electronic commons.

Re: Tax laws

[anke]

No, the aim is stopping big companies avoiding tax by operating from countries with low VAT. e.g. Amazon un Europe sits in Luxembourg, where the VAT is lowest, so smaller ebook sellers operating from, say, Germany or Spain have an even harder time competing, because VAT is higher there.

From what I heard, th epart where it'S killing small businesses is not intentional, but caused by COMPELTE AND UTTER IGNORANCE of small online businesses. -_-

Re: Tax laws

[ysabetwordsmith]

Having observed the actions of governments, I am dubious of your more favorable interpretation. It matches what they say, but not always what they do.

Re: Tax laws

[k_a_webb]

As I said before this law was created in 2008. Small business didn't exist in 2008 in the same way it does today and I can't help thinking the law makers haven't quite realised how much the world, especially the Internet, has changed in that time. Unfortunately - I think because barely anyone knows about it - the group who've been fighting this is having difficulty showing how it will affect people in the rest of the EU, and the rest of the world, as this is going to have an effect everywhere. People in the US who have heard about it are more than willing to stop selling to the EU, so we need to put a stop to it before our freedom to buy what we want where we want is damaged.

Re: Tax laws

[anke]

This, plus, politicians tend to come from a background where, say, paying £500 to sign up for a service that will take care of the VAT stuff is no biggie. Side/microbusinesses consisting of one person, with no hired accountant, who may consider themselves lucky if they make that much money, are just not on their radar.

Reminds me of the debate about university tuition here in Germany, and someone from the labour party declaring "five hundred euros a semester isn't going to stop anyone from studying", which made me wonder where he keeps his head, exactly.

I kinda doubt it can be stopped, at this point. :(