41–50 of 71 posts
Why not just use a European VAT in case a product isn't bound to a specific country, although the VAT should be "donated" to the country. VISA, Mastercard, Paypal and etc should have systems in order to donate it to the right country (they know the owner of the card). Don't have a solution yet for Bitcoin though...
The worst part is that non-VAT registered (because of turnover of less than £70K/~$100K in UK) businesses will have to register for VAT in each of the 28 EU countries they sell to individually (and probably in 15+ non-English languages). I intend to stop selling to (non-UK) EU countries in 2015, but I am worried about that decision as it may open me up to discrimination laws. If that's the case, I'll have to close my…
There's supposed to be a one-stop shop system to avoid this. Whether it's going to work properly on launch day is another question!
The worst part is that non-VAT registered (because of turnover of less than £70K/~$100K in UK) businesses will have to register for VAT in each of the 28 EU countries they sell to individually (and probably in 15+ non-English languages). I intend to stop selling to (non-UK) EU countries in 2015, but I am worried about that decision as it may open me up to discrimination laws. If that's the case, I'll have to close my…
There's supposed to be a one-stop shop system to avoid this. Whether it's going to work properly on launch day is another question!
This is hugely important. The rules themselves are designed to stop people like Amazon abusing the system (and believe me, they abuse it), but there's no provision for smaller companies, no one stop shop for dealing with the VAT authorities. It's going to be a disaster for SaaS startups.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon do not abuse it, they just run shop from an EU country with low VAT rate (Luxembourg) last I checked. And yes the VAT rules really do add alot of overheads on a business and bloat, which companies elsewhere are not subjected to. I have raised this with Revenue in Ireland (pointing at competitors in US, China etc not held back by paperwork) they ignored it and clarified (I wanted it in writing, I recommend ever…
They're walking a fine line in "abusing it" though. Why is it correct that a shopper in the UK, who would normally pay 20% VAT on an item if sold from the UK online, or in shop, but pays a lot less because Amazon has the clout and size to setup an operation there? It's similar to the changes a few years ago to the channel islands that was used (and some say abused) by online CD and DVD stores, including some large hi…
Customer location vat seems to be really easy to abuse. Luxembourg VPN + Post Forwarding = 15% rate on everything that can be ordered online. Compared to maximum vat in EU (Hungary, 27%) that's an enormous difference.
https://support.google.com/cloudbilling/answer/6090602?hl=en
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Amazon do not abuse it, they just run shop from an EU country with low VAT rate (Luxembourg) last I checked." They "abuse" it from the point of view from the countries where they don't pay the VAT.... f.e. the UK would like Amazon to pay VAT in the UK, and not in Luxembourg. So this new law is meant to prevent that, but at the same time waltz over small companies.
UK politicians (judging by recent headlines) also want to leave the EU, or at least threatening to do so if they don't get their way. They might like/want X but they will have to negotiate and endup with X-Y or nothing, since negotiating something as important as VAT while threatening to leave the club is politically counterproductive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon do not abuse it, they just run shop from an EU country with low VAT rate (Luxembourg) last I checked. And yes the VAT rules really do add alot of overheads on a business and bloat, which companies elsewhere are not subjected to. I have raised this with Revenue in Ireland (pointing at competitors in US, China etc not held back by paperwork) they ignored it and clarified (I wanted it in writing, I recommend ever…
Amazon not only make it look as though they're selling from countries other than Luxembourg, they actually charge their customers the higher VAT rates of those countries when selling digital goods but only pay the lower Luxembourg rate.
'If the customers IP address and billing address conflict you are going to have to halt the purchase unless ...'. So how do I, as a customer, go about buying something online while not at home? The 'unless' doesn't appear to unravel the mystery.
You can buy from a non-EU company just fine. But other than that, there are other allowed bits of information to proof country of consumption, it's just going to be a pain to implement in your check-out process :-/