Different VAT rates for digital and paperback publications in the EU, a breach of ‘fiscal neutrality’? A tentative answer and broader reflection on the coherence of the EU rules prohibiting indirect tax discrimination

Should we apply the same VAT rates to digital and paperback publications for the sake of fiscal neutrality? The debate has been raging on for some time but the question has not yet been analysed in detail, nor in the literature, nor even by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its recent decisions concerning the application by France and Luxembourg of reduced rates for e-books. This is the objective of this paper, and also the occasion to suggest a new perspective on the scope and objective of the case-law based VAT ‘principle of fiscal neutrality’.