Did you know that universities and colleges pay VAT at the full standard rate, currently 20%, on subscriptions to electronic academic journals, books, newspapers and magazines?
Printed versions of the same resources are zero-rated in the UK; in the rest of Europe VAT is applied at the reduced rate, currently 5%.
An e-petition has been set up to urge our Government to do one of two things:
Introduce zero-rated VAT on electronic academic publications.
Or, if it is not feasible to add electronic publications to the list of zero-rated goods then to follow other European countries and apply VAT at the reduced rate now and consider reducing this to 0% as soon as possible.
100,000 signatures are needed for the topic to be considered for debate in the House of Commons. Anyone can sign and we would like you and your colleagues, academic staff, students, researchers friends and family to sign the e-petition.
Categories: Library
Tags: academic publications, electronic academic journals, staff students, zero rated vat
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