The Mail on Sunday

British MEP lashes out over VAT rules

- By VICKI OWEN

CATHERINE Bearder, the Liberal Democrat MEP who sent a letter to the European Commission president in March from MEPs from 16 countries calling for an urgent revision of rules threatenin­g small firms, has hit out again.

New EU VAT rules were introduced in January, forcing traders selling electronic services such as e-books and videos online, to charge VAT at the rate where the buyer lives, not at the rate in the country where the trader is based.

The rules were designed to bring in more tax from internet giants such as Amazon, but have hit small traders with a huge amount of red tape.

Campaigner­s have recently convinced the Commission to introduce a sales threshold and it has announced a consultati­on.

But Bearder told The Mail on Sunday: ‘My concern now is that it’s going to take a long time to get this through.

‘I want them to immediatel­y stop everything and then come back with better rules.’ She added: ‘We finally got the finance ministers to realise that they had fallen down a hole of unintended consequenc­es. They’re trying to get the big Amazons, Googles and eBays, but what they’re actually doing is really getting the small people.’

Simon McVicker, director of policy and external affairs at IPSE, a body for the selfemploy­ed, said: ‘The rules can act as a disincenti­ve to doing business abroad. Many small firms aren’t equipped to comply with these complex regulation­s.’

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