Richard III and the trade in printed books by Alex Marchant
There has been a great deal in the news of late about trade and tariffs and taxes on goods, especially across frontiers in this increasingly global world. I don’t have a great deal of interest in (let alone knowledge of) modern economics. However, for me (as often happens, given my area of research), any and all roads potentially lead to the 1480s and the reign of a certain King Richard III. And a recent incident led me to an interesting related point about the king, his attitudes and achievements. Richard III depicted on the contemporary Rous Roll While setting up the listing for one of my books on the website of print-on-demand company Blurb, I saw a notification saying ‘Value added tax (VAT) will be added to the total price at the checkout.' My immediate thought was 'But there's no VAT on books – at least not here in the UK.' Then, 'Should I reduce the list price so the buyer pays no more than the normal price?' I checked. I was correct. In th...