
France may tax publications protected by DRM at a higher rate - koudi
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.rue89.com%2Fles-coulisses-de-wikipedia%2F2013%2F11%2F14%2Fun-livre-verrouille-nest-plus-un-livre-cest-lassemblee-nationale-qui-le-dit-231677
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Cynddl
It's a little more difficult. The proposed legislation is not accepted, and
will probably not be:
[http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.april.org%2Fprix-
du-livre-vers-une-tva-selon-la-presence-ou-non-de-drm&act=url)

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joelhaasnoot
This is the same in the Netherlands - VAT on ebooks is 21% ("luxury goods"),
normal books are at the 6% rate (same as household goods, foods, etc). Then
again, there are more strange classifications in any tax schedule - hamster
food is taxed at 21%, rabbit food at 6% (rationale supposedly being rabbits
are food too...) and fixing a moped is 21%, but a bike is 6%.

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tokenizer
The only problem I have with an analyzed/conditional tax system is the
legitimacy of the party in charge of collecting it.

Everyone can nod their heads at taxing vehicles more than bicycles, but if
that additional government income goes into tax breaks for certain
corporations, or bad social policies (everyone thinks there's one!).

This is why I enjoy flat taxes, so we can focus more on the policies that
money provides, rather than siderail that discussion with debates on _what_
those taxes should be.

Obviously we should implement policies that become less expensive with time,
but hearing that the Netherlands has a 21% tax rate on moped repair is insane.
What does that money directly contribute to? The military? Tax breaks?

With flat sales taxes we can focus directly on policy. Everyone is equal in
terms of the percentage of product consumers must pay in taxes, for their
product.

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gamblor956
_Everyone is equal in terms of the percentage of product consumers must pay in
taxes, for their product._

That's only true in an absolute sense, but not in a relative sense. For a
person making minimum wage, each dollar is worth significantly more to that
person than someone making 6 figures a year. Moreover, they must ultimately
spend more of their income on purchases subject to a sales tax. Thus, the
person making minimum wage ends up paying a larger portion of their wealth in
taxes, even though it is the person making 6 figures a year (or more) who
actually derives greater value (relative and absolute) from the government
services funded by those taxes.

A flat tax may be conceptually easy to understand, but it is not economically
or morally equitable.

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Double_Cast
>> Everyone is equal in terms of the _percentage_ of product consumers must
pay in taxes, for their product.

> For a person making minimum wage, each _dollar_ is worth significantly more
> to that person than someone making 6 figures a year.

I believe you're referring to "Marginal Propensity to Consume". But MPC is
evaluated with respect to dollar-amounts, not percentages like you imply. A
dollar bill is tangible, but a percentage is a ratio, which is abstract. So I
feel like you're comparing apples to oranges. I.e. a "flat tax" vs a "flat tax
_rate_ ".

Under a flat tax rate, minimum wage earners are more sensitive to dollar
changes, but also pay less total dollars. Does the former compensate for the
latter? Moot. But let's not forget that a flat tax rate would simplify the tax
code and more conspicuously expose loopholes.

Elegance and simplicity are often unnecessary and quixotic. But in this case,
I think it's actually the progressive tax rate schemes which are unnecessary
and quixotic. According to the U.S. Constitution, the purpose of a tax is to
enable the U.S. Government to raise the funds necessary to continue operating,
not to redistribute wealth. A flat tax rate and a progressive tax rate can
accomplish this same goal, but a progressive tax rate is so needlessly
arbitrary. Inevitably, a progressive tax rate graph looks more like an S-curve
than a J-curve. This is due to the asymptote which arises because the domain
is [0, inf) while the range is [0%, 100%].

If you're worried about the ethics of inequality, I think this is more aptly
dealt with via tax returns and subsidies. I like to think of this as
separating the core from the features.

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FennNaten
Yeah, thought that was a great idea and was happy that the law was voted...
and two days after, Assembly voted an article cancelling this one, pushed by
the government. A big lobbyism at work and a "Europe won't like it and will
condemn us" excuse. Our government has no balls.

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Oletros
It is not an excuse, a member can't change the type of VAT applied to products

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FennNaten
I know that but that's not really my point. We already changed the type of VAT
on this. Bit of context for better understanding (sorry for the length): Point
of the law article was to say digital products with DRMs and platform locking
aren't really products selling, but renting services instead, and so must be
taxed as such. On the other hand, ebooks without DRMs and platform locks are
technically books, even if not printed, and so must fall into the book tax
class, which has a lower rate. But at the moment, at European Commission
level, ebooks are all, DRM or not, considered as services and not eligible to
lower tax rates. However, in 2012, France and Luxembourg kind of said "fuck
off" to Europe on this point, and both put the VAT rate on ebooks (with and
without DRMs) in the book category. For that those countries are under
procedure from European Court and must justify enough the case if they don't
want to be fined. The debate is on, and may cause a change on this at European
level. Our government estimated that the law article making the distinction
between DRMised and not DRMised products didn't come at the right time
regarding the ongoing debate. And that's what baffles me: the "show up my
balls" move had already be done, and this law article was in my opinion a good
way to show that we're thinking about what we do, and are not directed by
Amazon-leaded lobby on the tax rate choice, because it excluded them of it.
And that could have been a good argument over the European Court: we make our
choices because of their logical nature, not because of external pressure. The
retractation however, shows the opposite.

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Oletros
Having DRM is not the cause of higher VAT, is being an electronic document
what makes the VAT being the standard and not the reduced one.

And it is and European categorization, all the countries members of the EU
must use that VAT

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ernesth
France is battling Europe's notion of what electronic books are. At the
moment, contrary to Europe's advice, France taxes ebooks as books (5.5% in
France) while Europes wants ebooks to be taxed as services (20% in France).

This law plays on that distinction, considering that DRMed books are licences
hence should be subject to 20% VAT while non DRMed books are indeed books
hence subject to low tax.

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asb
Right now in the UK, VAT is at 20% on ebooks as it is for any other standard
rate item. Physical books and magazines are at 0%. Most people won't be paying
this though, as sites like Amazon sell from Luxembourg where VAT on eBooks is
3%
([http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=502578)).
This can mean that providing a digital product (this recently came up with the
Linux Voice IndieGoGo [http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/linux-
voice/](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/linux-voice/)) doesn't knock off as
much of the cost as you might expect.

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gamblor956
The Luxembourg loophole is expected to be closed by 2015, at which point
Luxembourg must increase its VAT in line with those of other EU nations (or
alternatively, must alter its VAT system so that the 3% rate is only available
for sales _to_ Luxembourg customers). If Luxembourg doesn't change its VAT
system, the European Commission will likely carry through on last year's
threat to impose fines which would wipe out the tax income Luxembourg
currently generates from offering the loophole to companies like Amazon.

[http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2013/09/18/new-tax-
rules-e...](http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2013/09/18/new-tax-rules-eu-
will-wipe-amazons-tax-loophole/#.UokJ4-KCFEY)

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mtgx
Add to that the fact that Amazon is subsidizing Kindle device buyers, by
asking all the other foreigners to pay an extra $2 for each e-book, making
e-books much more expensive for the vast majority of Kindle ebook buyers:

[http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/amazon-hold-
ba...](http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/amazon-hold-back-the-
growth-of-e-books-around-the-world/)

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infocollector
What happens when one buys an electronic book from outside France (
[http://bookscanner.us](http://bookscanner.us) ) ? Who pays the tax and when?

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paulgb
This is off-topic, but it pains me to see that they shred and recycle the
books rather than donating them to schools/libraries.

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icebraining
That would be a copyright violation. The only way to avoid the charge is to
destroy the original, so that they can claim no real copy has been made, just
a transfer of format.

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paulgb
Ah, that makes sense.

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fnordsensei
And those taxes will get passed on to the customer, guaranteed.

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desas
Yes, the tax is the VAT, which is designed to be only paid by customers. It's
roughly analogous to a sales tax in the US

