Formal alignment of VAT rates for electronic and hard copy publications
ECOFIN recently adopted a directive allowing the alignment of VAT rules for electronic and physical publications meaning that member states can apply reduced, super-reduced or zero VAT rates to electronic publications. Ireland has made a provision to apply the 9 percent VAT rate to certain electronic publications from 1 January 2019 under Finance Bill 2018.
The 9 percent VAT rate applies to sales of printed newspapers and the 9 percent rate is extended to books, newspapers and periodicals supplied electronically, with effect from 1 January 2019 as per section 41(b) Finance Act 2018.