Truly nasty tax changes that will probably affect YOU

There are scary new EU VAT tax changes coming in on 1 January 2015 which will affect you if you run a business selling digital products from anywhere in the world, if you sell to countries in the EU.

They will definitely affect you if you live in the EU and buy digital products (ebooks, music, craft patterns etc) as at best prices will go up to include the VAT, and at worst you won't be able to buy from many sellers as they will exclude the EU to avoid dealing with these new laws.

Many businesses are simply closing down at the end of this year, so even if you aren't in the EU or have a business that sells to the EU, you may still be affected.

In short, it will affect hundreds of thousands of small businesses, many of which will be forced to shut.

Here is an excellent resource of what's happening and how you can get involved campaigning against these changes.

There is also a good write-up of the issues by What Delilah Did here.

There is a petition to try and suspend these changes for micro-businesses and sole traders here - please sign it!

Here are some businesses that are either closing completely or stopping selling their digital products from the end of the year, so this is your last chance to support them:

• http://www.thewritersgreenhouse.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/introducing-story-elements-complete-set.html
• http://newmamawelcome.com/
• http://andstitches.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/final-sale-on-zine.html
• http://www.headtrash.co.uk/programmes/audio-programmes/calm-in-10
• http://thepillowfort.co.uk/2014/11/magazinehiatus/
• http://deliciousdoodles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/closing-down-sale.html
• https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Snappyscrappy
• https://penwrangler.wordpress.com/
• https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/208269753/peacock-kumihimo-bracelet-tutorial
• https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Genniewren
• http://blog.followthewhitebunny.com/2014/12/saying-goodbye-to-digital-patterns.html
• http://teasemade.blogspot.co.uk/

If you are in this position and want me to add your site to this list, leave a comment.

I will be taking my monster Halloween pattern off sale from Etsy and Craftsy at the end of the year, and waiting to see what happens (so frustrating as I had many plans for new patterns for next year). Currently HMRC are saying that manually emailing PDFs to customers won't get caught up in the tax changes, but they keep changing their minds on it so I don't want to risk it. Here it is to jog your memory in case you want to buy it: