PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION to call for THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION to unilaterally suspend the introduction of the new EU VAT laws for micro businesses and sole-traders, which if allowed to come into force will unfairly disadvantage the EU’s smallest businesses.

The new EU VAT regulations coming into force on 1 Jan 2015 change the way in which VAT (consumer tax) is charged on digital services - instead of the tax rate being applied according to where the supplier is located, the seller must determine where the buyer is located and apply the relevant local rate of tax to the purchaser. So that means if you live in Italy and someone in Germany purchases your digital file, you need to pay VAT at the German rate to the German authorities. Just to be clear, that's a total of 75 different tax rates across 28 different markets!

This may sound like a simple change on the face of it but, make no mistake, this will bring corporate levels of regulation and administration not just to the Boardrooms, but also to the kitchen tables of sole-traders. Hundreds of thousands of the smallest businesses simply cannot comply with this law and are faced with a stark choice at the end of this month – either to close their cherished businesses or to break the law. That is not a reasonable choice to force them to make.

Whilst the majority of us support the intention of this new legislation, designed to put a stop to billions of euros of the consumer tax being lost due to multi-nationals locating in low tax jurisdictions, the implementation of these rules will cripple, and potentially force into closure, hundreds of thousands of micro-businesses across the EU. The costs in paperwork, bureaucracy, and amendments to websites and payment processing will simply mean that many businesses are no longer viable.

Not concerned because you sell physical products rather than digital services? This is just the first wave of legislation - YOU are next in the EU’s sights. Similar rules are planned to extend to all products as early as 2016, eradicating any distance selling thresholds you currently enjoy.

The European Commission argues that this will create a level playing field because means that sellers will no longer be able to unfairly undercut by businesses by locating themselves in another EU member state with a lower VAT rate – but in reality it will unfairly disadvantage the EU’s smallest companies; creating a divide between the multi-national companies who can afford to comply with this complex and archaic piece of legislation and those sole-traders and micro-businesses that simply can’t.

Still don’t think this affects you because you aren’t a business owner? Not only will the range of products available for you to buy be greatly diminished, but the information collected by those businesses that do survive needs to be retained for 10 years - creating a huge data security risk for us all. Where currently you only have to worry about your payment provider/card handler storing your personal data, going forward millions of small businesses across the world will now have a requirement to do so.

The opportunities offered by the digital economy have been a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of people: mothers, carers, chronically ill, people with disabilities, retirees and so on, who would otherwise not be able to go out to work in a traditional pattern and have created flourishing and innovative businesses from their kitchen tables. What The EU Commission doesn’t seem to recognise is that closing this avenue of business will crush the microbusiness community - in the process costing governments far more in welfare payments than the small amount of consumer tax they would ever raise from these businesses!

At a time when the European Commission is trying to lower trade barriers for the world's largest businesses, they are putting up trade barriers for the smallest ones, thereby stifling innovation and creativity in small start-ups who could be leading the way and taking advantages of new opportunities in a growing digital market place.

We need the EU to realise the impact of these new regulations before it is too late and they have completely destroyed the EU’s sole-trader and micro-business community.

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