new VAT rules in eurpe - will you be affected?

This seems to me to be something that is going to have a massive impact on digital content sellers - not so much through the major app stores but if you sell through your own website.  Straight away you will either have to register for VAT in the UK , use VATMOSS and lose the VAT free sales threshold OR don't register for VAT in the UK but then have to register for VAT in every other EU country?!?

If it really is targeted at the big firms like Apple and Google then ironically they will probably be the least affected by it as they have the systems and expertise to deal with the change.  Micro businesses / sole traders are going to get clubbed by it!

In terms of app stores the bottom line is if they don't handle the sales tax for developers then pretty quickly developers won't sell content through them.  I think this is why Google changed their terms - selling through Google has always been less straight forward than dealing with Apple but Google didn't seem to want to do anything about it until this new regulation arrives and suddenly they roll out a new feature to take care of things. 

It remains to be seen how good the enforcement is I guess - if you sell a $2 app on your own website into EU is someone actually going to come knocking on your door for the tax?