Universities and colleges are obliged to pay VAT at the full standard rate, which is currently 20%, on their subscriptions to electronic academic journals, books, newspapers and magazines.
We believe that they should be treated in the same way for VAT as printed publications. 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%.
This extra VAT burden means that libraries have less to spend on electronic publications making it very difficult for us to move towards e-provision.
Electronic publications are greener, save valuable storage space and offer increased availability for the majority of users.
Sign the e-petition 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.
We need 100,000 signatures for the topic to be debated in the House of Commons. Anyone can sign:
• You will need to provide your name, address and email
• You can choose to receive email updates from the government about the e-petition