Visiting Juliet has reminded me of the dreadful ongoing mess caused by the EU’s new VAT laws for digital services. Despite sterling work by Juliet and her colleagues, and many lobbyists and politicians, we still don’t have a workable solution.

Meanwhile I have email from Podbean encouraging me to add a patronage feature to my account. Whoever set this up for them appears to be totally unaware of the need for any sales into the EU (and possibly now Australia) to charge VAT (or GST) on the transaction, and pay the appropriate tax authorities in the country where the customer resides. So a whole lot more people are being gently encouraged to break EU law by a third party platform that is based safely outside of the EU and so will doubtless escape any legal action.

Today Juliet posted an excellent blog entry on the EU VAT Action website explaining how the new laws disproportionately affect the poor, the disabled, those from less developed countries and so on. The government is simultaneously trying to prevent people from claiming benefits, and preventing them from starting businesses that might help them no longer need benefits. It’s ridiculous.