With the new year come the adjustments of services, taxes and prices to many areas of the user's life. And this time it's also up to the applications So says a new European regulation that will enter into force next day January 1 and for which the digital goods (applications and software) will receive a new type of tax which, in the case of Spain, will slightly increase the costof these tools for smartphones and tabletsSomething that, in the case of Apple, will be borne by the users themselves.
This is what the company itself is making known Apple to the developers who have created and published applications and games through its storeApple Store Via email, depending on the medium Applesfera, Apple is communicating the change of the tax that applies to this content. And it is that the regulations previously differentiated between physical goods and digital goods, allowing the latter to be taxed at the place of residence of the company. In this case, Apple did it in Luxembourg, where the tax percentage is15 percent Quite a tax benefit both for users and for Apple itself Apple
However, as of January the law of the European Union says that the digital tax must also coincide with the VAT of the country where the buyer is locatedIn other words, 21 percent VAT in Spain An increase that Apple will not encourage or force developers to do so. In fact, in his informative email, he informs them that everything will remain the same since their income is calculated without VAT Thus, the cost of the increase of15 to 21 percent of VAT will be assumed by the user himself
This translates to a five percent increase in application prices of the App Store as of January 2015. More specifically, an app that previously cost 0.89 euros, as It can be WhatsApp, from 2015 it will rise to 0, 93 euros An increase that It is more noticeable, of course, in higher-cost applications, such as games.Thus, a title of 4, 49 euros would increase to 4, 72 euros from next January.
An increase that will not alert too much to the users of iOS, even more so when the statistics affirm that they are the ones who They are more willing to pay for an application But that is not a tasteful dish for them either. Especially out of habit. Of course, it is necessary to comply with European laws to protect the interests of these contents and their creators. And it will be an increase that may also be seen in Google Play Store and Windows Phone Store, since no platform is free of this tax.
At the moment, only the information about the change of lien is known, although it is possible that Apple take some kind of action on this paradigm shift. Something that seems to try to solve the tax evasion of the big technology companies but that, as usual, will be at the expense of the users themselves
