May 28

Apple position on VAT for Apps in iTunes

iPad Related, iPhone Related 1 Comment »

What an afternoon!  I sent what I thought was a simple request to Apple Support to try and get a VAT receipt for my recent iPad apps for Keynote, Pages and Numbers.  It was a general request for a VAT receipt for recent purchases.  Having read this article http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/work/small-business/article.html?in_article_id=500346&in_page_id=10 I thought it would be fairly straightforward as Apple must have changed their position on VAT receipts.

How mistaken I was, my very pleasant support represeantative at Apple kindly informed me that the contract of sale is to an end user not a business and therefore they did not have to give me a VAT receipt.  They gave me the following link and just stood behind that.

http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/uk/terms.html#SALE

I was at first told:

“… since iTunes is based in the US, we are not required to provide customers with VAT receipts. This is included in the Terms of Sale, which you agreed to when you setup iTunes.”

This is factually incorrect, iTunes actually operates from:

iTunes SARL, 8 rue Heinrich Heine, L-1720 Luxembourg, Company Reg No: B 101 120, VAT No: LU 20165772

The dialog then took a different tone once I pointed out their mistake.  They re-enforced that sales are only to consumers.  They were however prepared to provide VAT receipts for apps purchased.  A breakthrough!

“Although I cannot provide the VAT receipts for all of your purchases, I will gladly do so for Apps. Here is the UK Terms of sale for you to look over”

So, being clear of the facts from today’s approach of Apple.  You seem only able to get VAT receipts for apps.  I am yet to get an explanation for other products sold over iTunes, however it does at least allow me to reclaim VAT for the recent iPad apps that I use on my business owned iPad.  I can’t help but think that this is just the first of many such complaints of Apple as the iPad will be used by businesses.

It seems the irrefutable piece of evidence was that iTunes is actually VAT registered.  Also, that Apple are legally obliged to produce VAT receipts on request.  Why they don’t just issue VAT receipts as a matter of course I don’t know.  I’d love someone from Apple to explain that to me.

- silence -

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Apr 28

iPad – Thoughts & Review

iPad Related, iPhone Related 1 Comment »

I got frustrated with apple slipping the launch of the iPad in the UK and bought one from the US.  First impressions are very favourable as I like the big screen.  It keeps disappearing from my office though,  and even found its way to doing a weekly tesco.com food order.  The real boon for me is that it makes email great when sitting in the house or away from a computer, where I might have once used my iPhone.   The fact that tweetdeck has already launched an ipad app is great, as of writing though i’m still waiting for a facebook app.

What I don’t like however is that the screen gets really grubby quickly so if like me you might watch a movie, write an email, go to a few websites etc. then you tend to notice the finger marks build quickly.  Given the size of the screen you notice this more so than on an iphone.

In order to kurb the imports, apple have very kindly locked down the app store on the ipad, so anyone thinking of buying one from the US – you’ll have limited app availability and you won’t be able to update apps directly from the ipad.  Fear not though as you can just open itunes on your PC or Mac, and look around for ipad apps.  There are a number of them.

Even more frustrating though is that I can’t get the iBooks or iWork apps, so am going to wait until the official release in May, depsite my best efforts to get a US apple account.   Kindle have their reader working, so at least you have the kindle book option in the interim.  I’m not sure whether I’d use it for productivity apps such as spreadsheets and document editing.  Time will tell as to how this new device settles into its use.

Another gripe for me is the lack of flash support.  With a larger screen size you would expect an almost full browser experience, however thankfully you aren’t taken off to a mobile version.  Apple do need to get their flash position sorted out as this will be one of the big let downs and frustrations, compounded by the recent CS5 debacle with Adobe withdrawing support for their flash conversion tools.

Overall though – I can’t wait for more app support, oh and the UK release so I can finally get into updating things without going via iTunes.

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