UK or non-EU customers only

Good evening everyone,

I have used a RISC OS for some time on Raspberry Pi, and although I never had any Acorn computer, I like it very much. I really admire all the wonderful work that many devoted enthusiasts do for the system. I bought a couple of programs from !Store and I enjoy them a lot.

Recently, I was also considering buying BBC Basic for Windows. Not that I need it, but I enjoy typing in Basic listings from Drag ‘N Drop from time to time. Recently I also got my copy of Bruce Smith’s book about RISC OS programming, so I thought it would be nice to try some BBC Basic on other platforms.

To my suprise, a note on Mr Russell’s page says: “Please note that purchase by digital download is not available to customers located in the European Union but outside the United Kingdom”. I live in EU, and it seems that this fact prevents me from buying a digital version of the software.

Can someone explain to me please, what is the problem here? Brexit? Some British law regulations, which I am not aware of? Is !Store going the same way?

Thanks!

Christopher

I don’t know if it is to do with Brexit (shudder!) at all, but the fact is that slightly fewer than half of us bothered to vote against it, and slightly more than half of us decided, for whatever reason, to vote for it.

That the rules were not clearly laid down (established) before hand is regrettable, but that is now in the past, and responsibility firmly laid before the door of the then prime minister (premier).

It has been said that many voted for “in protest” – not wishing the outcome, but wanting to express frustration – but our dogged government has decided to pursue the “letter of the law” to its logical end – which nearly half of us think is catastrophic!

Unfortunately, there is no remedy available to those of us who dissent – we have to wait for a miracle!

If this is indeed the cause of your problem, we sympathise – but are powerless!

Brexit will probably make things worse… But no, this is likely a result of the 2015 tax changes where VAT is charged (and payable to) the country where the purchaser resides (this being mostly aimed at certain companies that make billions in sales yet pay pennies in tax in Luxembourg/Ireland).
You are required to hold multiple pieces of information to prove what country the sale was made to (asking the user doesn’t count, they could lie) such as bank location, IP address, etc. Normally you don’t have any of that with an automated purchase system using PayPal. Why should the vendor care? Your money is good or it isn’t. But now the vendor is obliged to care, and it’s their liability to demonstrate that they are sufficiently recording all of this stuff. As you can imagine, while it isn’t apparently that hard to register with a MOSS, there are those who simply decide that there will be no sales to other EU countries. Better yet, this rule applies to all sales to EU citizens globally. An American or Chinese outfit will need to comply and pay the appropriate taxes. Yeah. Good luck with that……

https://quaderno.io/resources/eu-vat-guide/eu-vat-2015/

Ah, I see. Clever.

You cannot buy BBFW as a digital download as this makes it fall into the remit of the new VAT rules.

You can, however, send a cheque or bank transfer and receive a copy posted back to you. This is a physical object, so it doesn’t count under the new VAT rules.

Personally I think the biggest flaw here is the VAT rules have no lower threshold. A company making €€€€€ would be able to employ people to keep track of all of this, while small businesses offering software and maybe bringing in a few hundred (don’t quit the day job) will find the whole thing onerous and a pain in the ass.

than half of us

Clarification: By “half of us”, John means those members of the electorate that bothered to actually go out and vote (and were permitted to participate).

As such, the winning “half of us” equates to a little over a third (about 37%) of the electorate, and a little over a quarter (about 27%) of the population as a whole.

but are powerless!

Isn’t it about time somebody said Vive la révolution! ?
Or are you all going to be very British and sleepwalk into this disaster?
I mean, you do know that the EU is still waiting for a solid agreement on the first three items that were laid out months ago? There’s maybe a third of a year of negotiation time left and the easy stuff at the beginning still hasn’t been done. Not only that, but anybody who says anything is immediately contradicted by somebody else with an entirely different option, and they will then be contradicted by Rees-Mogg or BloJo who will say something stupid or – God help us – the post-op brain donor David Davis who will… just open his mouth and let random syllables fall out.

[sorry, I’m not really paying any attention to Aldershot these days as some people don’t like it; mostly just wanted to correct you on the meaning of “half”, for half the people did not vote for Brexit, only half (plus a few) of those who actually voted; okay I’ll shut up now]

Clarification: By “half of us”, John means those members of the electorate that bothered to actually go out and vote (and were permitted to participate).

OK – I know this is a big thing for you personally – but if you weren’t asked, it’s not your fault!

I voted; I was defeated; I blame Cameron, for all the good that does!

It’s the half-cock “Oh, we don’t need to establish strict criteria because we’re bound to win” attitude which has cocked-up all our lives!

Such arrogance! Such consequences which will result!

It’s not politics as such, it’s the result of incompetence! Or fool-hardiness which will cost us all!

Thanks for the explanation, Rick! I’m sorry if I started some bad emotions here, it wasn’t my intention. My feeling was that EU citizens are being deliberatery mistreated, which turned out not to be true. It seems that we are all here being mistreated by the UE officials instead…

I just hope I will still be able to buy software from the !Store. I’m afraid that RISC OS user base outside Britain is so minimal that making physical CDs for them (or “us”, I should say) will just be unprofitable :(

Regardless of EU/VAT issues etc, you may like to have a look at http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk and follow link to BBC BASIC for SDL 2.0 which introduces Richard Russell’s new version which runs on Windows, plus Android, Linux, MacOSX, and Raspbian. It is largely compatible with his BB4W, although not quite as polished. And it is FREE to download!

Sounds great, thanks for the hint!

I just hope I will still be able to buy software from the !Store. I’m afraid that RISC OS user base outside Britain is so minimal that making physical CDs for them (or “us”, I should say) will just be unprofitable :(

The online docs don’t appear to mention VAT at all so I’m not sure what the story is there. Usually UK prices have VAT already included, and when I buy things from the UK the VAT is removed at checkout (because I’m not in the EU). That didn’t happen with a !Store purchase last week, so I’m not sure what the VAT situation is.