I wrote an ebook this year on the Consumer Rights Directive, which was the EU e-commerce law designed to increase cross-border sales. Within a year of that we now have this law which threatens to reverse all the benefits of the CRD by putting such a high legislative burden on small businesses that they will have to shut their doors to customers outside their own borders.

I simply cannot grasp what public benefit would be had to any public purse by forcing sole traders to register for VAT in countries where they have sold one copy of a £12 ebook. Surely there will be a minimum sales threshold or a common-sense exception?