Noooo!!!
Don't auto-delete my digital first edition which is made all the more rare by the publishers errors!
Mind you, I need a new Kindle after she scribbled her autograph over the screen with a Sharpie(tm).
JK Rowling's first novel not to feature young bespectacled wizard Harry Potter was released on Wednesday, following a massive marketing campaign that effectively shrouded The Casual Vacancy in mystery before its debut on bookstore shelves. But it didn't all go according to plan, after the ebook version of the 506-page tome was …
It's Luxembourg tax that's paid, not UK. Really annoying if you're a business user as Amazon will neither issue a VAT refund or, more correctly, zero rate the VAT. Apparently, Kindles are not allowed to be used for business use, if you complain, you're breaking the Terms and conditions. They can then delete all your books.
Next time, I'm buying a Kobo.
and 20% on £11.99 is only a couple of quid.
So if it was tax free, they'd be charging us £9.59, which you just know they'd round up to £9.99 anyway.
The lack of a physical product to print, combine into a book and ship to distributors _must_ save the publishing companies more than just 2 quid a book doesn't it?
Incorrect. Come on, this couldn't really be an easier percentage.
*£10* + VAT @20% = £12.
The price before VAT *IS* £9.99.
Not "£9.59". You're doing the wrong calculation.
Common sense really, as it's obvious that 9.59x1.2 != 11.99
I suppose you work in computers? I just hope it's not anything to do with money.
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Modern practice is always to specify the oxidation state explicitly where a substance can exist in several. So one would write what used to be "nitrate" as "nitrate (V)", and what used to be "nitrite" as "nitrate (III)". So one could quite legitimately write "pentyl nitrate (III)" ("amyl" also being discouraged).
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I've seen poppers labelled as amyl nitrate, alkyl nitrate, amyl nitrite and alkyl nitrite as well as a couple of others I forget (Wikipedia suggests butyl versions). So, perhaps the Torygraph writer took their information from the ingredients list of the product. You can hardly blame someone for that, especially given the tendency of nomenclature to change over the decades.
Well, I have a paper textbook that backs that one up too. I believe its use as a sexual stimulant is due to the increased blood flow through [into] sexual organs and the relaxation of the anal sphincter -- hence its use being more prevalent in the gay scene (from what I can gather).
I take it, though, that The Torygraph are referring to the feeling of dizziness and the thumping in the temples it produces as well as the felt increase in heart rate. However, I'd love to think they were, instead, referring to Stephen Fry's description of Dan Brown's canon.
VAT is what consumers pay - not businesses. As a consumer in the UK we have to pay 20%. The businesses job is to pass this 20% on to the government where bought, so in this case Amazon will be giving that 20% direct to our government. This has nothing to do with Luxembourg.
The VAT on ebooks and not on books issue is annoying though.
Nope.
Under EU VAT law, for "Business to Consumer" transactions, and where the deliverable is "not physical" (eg. services, software, or electronic books), the VAT is charged where the vendor is based. In the case of Amazon (and iTunes, and the rest) that's Luxembourg. The VAT on electronic books (and anything else a consumer in the UK downloads from Amazon, iTunes and the rest) goes to Luxembourg, not to the UK.
For "Business to Business" transactions, and where the deliverable is "not physical", the VAT is charged where the purchaser is based. So, as a business purchaser, if you can demonstrate to the vendor of "non physical" items that you are indeed a business and are VAT registered, they should not charge Luxembourg VAT (and you will instead have to account for the VAT on your UK VAT return). However, try telling that to iTunes, Amazon and the rest...
For all transactions where the deliverable is "physical" (eg. a piece of hardware you bought from Amazon), the VAT is charged where the purchaser is based. Which means that, if a consumer buys a physical DVD of a piece of software from Amazon, they pay UK VAT, and if they buy a download of the same piece of software, from the same vendor, they pay Luxembourg VAT.
Oh, and BTW, if you've paid Luxembourg VAT, you can't claim it back on your UK VAT return.
Great, aint it?
Do these people, seriously, want their stuff pirated. An e-book that costs £2 more than the hardback, and it has formatting errors?
eBooks have a lower intrinsic value than paper books because the cannot be loaned, sold on, or even given away, so trying to fleece people without even doing basic quality control is nothing more than profiteering.
Agreed. I look at the price of the eBook, then see if anyone is flogging it secondhand. I just got a hardback version of AN Wilson's The Victorians, in 'as new' condition for £2.67 including postage. Kindle edition, £7.31. I love the idea of eBooks, but I'm far too mean to pay these ridiculous prices.
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"people who are old enough to know better but don't, due to their average reading age being somewhere south of 14."
I think you're being totally unfair and a typical book snob. Anything that gets people who've never read a book since their last english lesson in school reading again is always a good thing. I wonder how many people have (re)-discovered the joy of books, and have since read other stuff, I bet it's quite a few. It doesn't have to be high brow but at least they're reading which is better than not.
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