New EU VAT rules: bad news for sound designers & indie plugin developers

[Angus_FX]

Hi all,

This is a topic that's been rumbling on in the developer forum for some months now, but I wanted to bring it to wider attention as it's going to affect more than just devs.

As of January 1st, the EU VAT rules are changing. The whys and wherefores are complicated - in short, a measure designed to stop Amazon and Google from tax-dodging and protect retailers from online competition has ended up causing a whole lot of collateral damage to small businesses - who will have to register for VAT and do all the associated red tape, even if they're a part time hobby business.

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 0#p5949810

There's an article on HuffPo explaining the changes (from a UK perspective, but all countries are affected to some degree):

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/soozi-b ... 77222.html

and a petition which will help UK-based independents here:

https://www.change.org/p/vince-cable-mp ... l-products

There may be similar campaigns/petitions in other EU countries, I'm not aware of them but if someone in Germany, France etc. wants to set something up, happy to spread the word.