k_a_webb | EU VAT 2015 (Reply)

With 2015 being two weeks away… I really can’t believe how little of 2014 is left and how much I was one looking forward to the new year. Last month that changed. Last month I heard about the new VAT legislation, which changed everything. The fight is still ongoing, so I’m not giving up hope that we will get the threshold we so desperately need for thousands of businesses to be able to survive, but I also have to plan for the worst case scenario. What happens if we don’t get a threshold?

I will no longer be selling ebooks from my site. I don’t have the time to deal with VATMOSS, so I’m going to give that one a miss for now, although I might not be able to if they roll this out to physical goods. That’s something I’m trying not to think too much about. For now my focus is on helping the hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people who are doing everything they can to stop this mess from destroying the digital economy, because that is what this terrible law is going to do – if we can’t stop it. My hope is that we will. At the moment I can’t be certain of that, however, and that is why I’m writing this post. That’s why I’m thinking about what I will be doing next year in order to try to start earning some passive income.

The first thing I’m doing is waiting for Etsy to give me some idea if they’re going to be helping their sellers with this mess. We haven’t heard anything from them yet, but again I’m still hoping. I’ve been doing a lot of that recently. If they will be my ebooks will be sold there. That might mean them taking a cut of my earnings and right now that’s something I care about less than I ever had before. All the pennies really do count to me, especially as we are aware of certain things that might mean we have less income in the new year, but that’s something I won’t talk too much about in public – at the moment though I am just about managing to keep us both going, which is slowly getting harder. Fortunately I’m a stubborn person and I’m not going to stop. Even if they aren’t willing to help with the VAT issue I will be keeping my custom work up there, as they have a much bigger market share than I do. Please check it out. If I can make £200 a month there it’s less ghostwriting I need to take on in order to earn the same amount of income.

If Etsy aren’t willing to help then I have three options. One of those is Amazon. Now, I like Amazon as a buyer. It’s a good place to go for the things I want at a good price. However I’m not too happy with the idea of giving them more income when they are one of the reasons this law exists in the first place. So I don’t think that’s the one I’m going to pick. The second is going with someone who’ll deal with the VAT for me. Now this is an option I’m happier about, but the issue I have with this one is that I’ll lose UK income as they’ll charge VAT on all sales. This isn’t a huge problem and that means it is something I’m thinking about. My third option, the one I think is least likely to work and I most want to do, is to put all of my ebooks up for free here, while leaving the tip jars up in the hope that my readers like my work enough to want to drop some pennies in it – because it’s that income that will give me the time I need to be able to work on more. There will be no suggested tip value – whatever you wish to give me is always appreciated. I write because I love it, but the thing I also have to remember is that I do need to make some money doing this.

For now I’m still thinking. I’m still hoping that the work everyone is doing will mean I don’t have to do any of those things. So I thank them once again for the hard work they’ve done. You are all amazing.

Learn more about EU VAT and how it will affect you here.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.