As promised, we’ve been keeping an eye on the progress of the promised VATMOSS reforms, over at the EU VAT Action Campaign.

Today, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) signed off on the reforms. Here’s the official press release.

There are a couple of things in the small print that we’re double checking. Meantime, the tl:dr version is – we won! Below cross-border digital sales of €10,000, national VAT rules will apply, which in the UK means small businesses are free of that particular burden. And if you are doing that amount of digital business, there are now payment/transaction systems that are a viable overhead at that level. Up to €100,000 the rules are also simplified, again reducing costs and admin.

This doesn’t come into force until 1st January 2019, alas. But bear in mind on 4th December 2014, I was sitting in a meeting with the relevant department heads from HM Treasury, HMRC and a government minister, telling me and everyone else that there was nothing to be done, it would all be fine, and we should just go away and not worry our pretty little heads about it (I am paraphrasing slightly…)

Half a dozen of us self-employed women weren’t about to accept that, so we went off to find somewhere for lunch and the EU VAT Action Campaign was the result.

What does this mean in practical terms? If you’re new to the VATMOSS fiasco, here are a few reasons why the 2015 regulations, devised with minimal understanding of the current state of digital commerce, were so disastrous.

VAT rules to catch Amazon will incidentally crush small businesses.

The damage done to consumers by all this

Discrimination caused by these new rules

Why selling through 3rd party marketplaces isn’t an answer

The EU VAT Action Team’s impact study.

What does this mean for me personally? I am hugely thankful for my colleagues in the EU VAT Action Campaign, most notably Clare Josa who put in so many dedicated hours, and such effective, charming intransigence when faced with officialdom repeatedly trying to brush us off.

We owe an incalculable debt to Nicholas Whyte known throughout SFF circles, as a Doctor Who fan, an able Hugo Awards administrator, and indefatigable reader of a prodigous quantity of books. In his day job, as senior director, global solutions in APCO’s Brussels office, has more than two decades of experience in international affairs, advocacy and research. He counsels APCO’s clients on ally development and coalition building, advocacy, public affairs and strategic communication. He got in touch after my first blogpost about this, to convince me that yes, the EU Commission could be convinced this was a mistake, and here’s how to start going about it…

We can be very precise about the contribution made by Jason Kingsley of Rebellion . It was absolutely vital that we sent Clare Josa to the Fiscalis Summit in Dublin, in September 2015, to convey the full extent of the damage being done to the Finance ministers and chancellors of the European states. Jason stepped in to make sure we reached our fundraising target to cover the costs of sending her. As co-founder and CEO of one of the UK’s largest computer games companies, and of Rebellion Publishing, he really understands the digital economy. Outside the office, he’s also, quite literally, a knight in shining armour on a white horse. Seriously, click that link.

Given SF&F publishing took to the digital realm early and enthusiastically, this was set to hit our genre hard. The flipside of that was the widespread and ongoing support our campaign got from small presses, independent authors and fandom, in spreading the word, boosting the signal, writing letters and helping raise funds. Once again, I am very grateful to all.

Lastly, I was given the BFS Karl Wagner Award in 2015 for my work on behalf of authors and independent presses on this issue, alongside my writing. Today’s result puts the final polish on that. Okay, I didn’t imagine they’d ask for it back, if for some reason we couldn’t see this through but still…