Börsenblatt reports that from yesterday, December 18, the VAT rate for digital books fell from 19% to 7%. Read the original post in German here.

Austria will follow suit with a VAT reduction scheduled for January 1 2020, as will Netherlands, Spain and the Czech Republic.

Belgium, Croatia, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden have already reduced their VAT rate for ebooks, along with non-EU country Norway, the only one to have opted for a 0% rate. France and Italy both have reduced rates for “some” ebooks.

With the UK now set to leave the EU in the near future the country has the option to reduce VAT on digital books under the 2018 EU directive, reduce them after leaving the EU, or totally ignore common sense and continue to treat digital books as a cash-cow for the government.

Currently VAT on ebooks is levied at 20% in the UK, while print books are rated at 0%.