A ruling this month by the EU’s top court on e-books taxation in France and Luxembourg has forced the European Commission to embark on a tricky reform of European VAT rules.

For the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the digital and print book sectors are not parts of the same animal.

Paper publications in France and Luxembourg benefit from reduced VAT rates of 5.5% and 3% respectively.

But the decision of the two countries to apply the same rate to electronic books is a contravention of the European VAT Directive, according to a judgement from the CJEU, published on 4 March.

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