VAT rules to catch Amazon will incidentally crush small businesses

[jemck]

Originally published at Juliet E. McKenna. You can comment here or there.

Ah, the law of unintended consequences. You really would have thought legislators would know about that one. Apparently not. New VAT legislation to stop the likes of Amazon sneaking round their tax liabilities has a massive flaw. The turnover threshold is set at £0 which means

Comments

[ms_cataclysm]

J, I've spoken to my friend on the CIOT OMB committee who is a writer herself and also involved with musical webpublishing. I may not be able to do much more because of chemo but hope this will help.

[jemck]

That's really useful, many thanks, much appreciated.

Do let your pal know to contact me if she has any questions about last week's meeting with HMRC & Treasury.

Also, if she might have time to spare to summarise exactly how bad this is for musicians, that would be really useful.

There's a fifteen-strong EU VAT Action Team working furiously (in all senses) on this now, thanks to the wonders of social media. We have all sorts of talent and specialised knowledge among us - but music's one area where we would really value detailed input.

And very best wishes to you, with your own health issues <3

[ms_cataclysm]

Thank you - I'll keep you posted . Everyone's very wrapped up in the Autumn Statement at the moment so not sure when things might happen.