21 October 2020 
Andrea Marshall, Tax Specialist
***Update on 21 October 2020: EBSCO are still in negotiantions with HMRC. HMRC have raised some queries which EBSCO intends to respond to this week.***
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Andrea had a catch-up call with representatives from EBSCO earlier today (7/9/20) regarding the treatment of databases. EBSCO sent a letter to HMRC in late August asking for clearance on how to treat the supply of databases.
EBSCO’s advisers have reviewed the content of a representative sample of EBSCO’s databases and have found that approximately 75% of them have a high zero-rate e-publication content, being either full e-journals or complete articles from e-journals in a text format. Approximately 0.5% of the database content will be “other” items, such as audio visual. For these databases, EBSCO has requested that the supply can be totally zero-rated.
The remaining databases tend to be “Abstract and Index Databases” (such as “EconLit”). Clarification has been requested from HMRC as to the treatment of these databases.
EBSCO has also requested that any zero-rate can be backdated to 1 May 2020 and will keep BUFDG updated as the position develops.
