On Thu, 19 Feb 2015 05:27:25 +1100, john james wrote:

If somebody in France buys something from the UK, now, they pay UK VAT
on it in the same way as a UK resident would.

Not with intangibles like ebooks.

Yep, that is an oddity. Basically, digital downloads are viewed as giving
a nice easy "off-shoring" opportunity in low-VAT countries. So anybody
that sells sufficient digital products into a country to get above the
VAT threshold for that country is regarded as having a presence in that
country.

Problem is, some countries have zero VAT thresholds, versus the UK's £81k.