A book is a book. This is the hashtag of the campaign launched by the Italian Publishers Association, but, in short, it is also the motivation for the amendment to the Stability law presented by Dario Franceschini and announced by the minister himself via Twitter: “I have just presented a government amendment to bring Ebook VAT to 4%. A fair fight. #a book is a book”.
As the note released today explains: "A book is a book regardless of its format, only an incomprehensible bureaucratic mechanism can allow a discriminatory tax regime for ebooks". Ebooks on which currently weighs a VAT of 22% against that, precisely, of 4% on the paper book.
The idea is to consider books as “all publications identified by an Isbn code and conveyed through any physical medium or via electronic means of communication”. At the moment, from a taxation point of view, ebooks are equated to video games.
Franceschini's new proposal, in a certain sense, also represents a challenge to the EU, which in recent days he had rejected (in the absence of unanimity) this same proposal. In the other country in line with Italy on this issue, France, the rate on ebooks has been unilaterally lowered to 7%, and now there is the risk of a sentence by the Court.
