When is a book not a book? Well according to the VAT man, when it’s a photobook. Apparently he’s long taken the view that a photobook is really a special type of photo album, which means they’ve been subject to VAT.
However a recent ruling in a case brought by Truprint, photo and photobook printers. it has been agreed that all photobooks should be treated like ordinary books, effectively exempt from VAT. Apparently there’s been a split for many years in the photobooks industry between those suppliers who emerged out of the book publishing trade and those who turned to photobooks from printing snapshots. It was difficult for the latter to compete with the former as the VAT people told them to charge VAT, not an instruction they’d given to their competitors who naturally thought they were in a variant of the book business. Truprint and I’d guess others are now in line for a chunky tax rebate.
What does that mean for the market? Maybe prices will fall, maybe not. At least all suppliers will be on the same tax footing going forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment