My understanding is that a similar law is under consideration in the US? (Marketplace Fairness Act)
EU’s New VAT Rules Could Create a Mess for Startups
21–30 of 133 posts
Re: EU’s New VAT Rules Could Create a Mess for Startups
#22As someone who sells digital software licenses, this is quite an baffling situation to experience. Currently, I live in Massachusetts, which does not require collecting sales tax on digital goods. According to these new laws, even though I live in the USA, and don't collect any address information for my customers, I now need to: 1. Collect address and IP address information 2. Register with a MOSS somewhere in the E…
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but this only applies if you're selling from within the EU.
Re: EU’s New VAT Rules Could Create a Mess for Startups
#23As someone who sells digital software licenses, this is quite an baffling situation to experience. Currently, I live in Massachusetts, which does not require collecting sales tax on digital goods. According to these new laws, even though I live in the USA, and don't collect any address information for my customers, I now need to: 1. Collect address and IP address information 2. Register with a MOSS somewhere in the E…
> I'm almost considering shutting down sales to EU customers.
Then someone will launch a business that will do the same you do, but complying with regulations.
Taxes must be collected; without taxes, the welfare state collapses. You should know that, to be able to sell something in a market, you must understand its regulations first, and respect the decisions the citizens have taken (in this case, regarding taxes) through democratic ways.
Re: EU’s New VAT Rules Could Create a Mess for Startups
#24Let me just cut and paste from HMRC's advice page: If you supply digital services to consumers through an online portal, gateway or marketplace then it’s important to determine whether you’re making the supply to the customer or to the platform operator. Where the platform operator sets the general terms and conditions, authorises payment or delivery, or doesn’t clearly state the name of the supplier on the receipt o…
Indeed; if you're happy to pay a large chunk of your sales to an intermediary you can have them handle the compliance. If you want to disintermediate your sales then you have a lot of hassle.
Re: EU’s New VAT Rules Could Create a Mess for Startups
#25As someone who sells digital software licenses, this is quite an baffling situation to experience. Currently, I live in Massachusetts, which does not require collecting sales tax on digital goods. According to these new laws, even though I live in the USA, and don't collect any address information for my customers, I now need to: 1. Collect address and IP address information 2. Register with a MOSS somewhere in the E…
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but this only applies if you're selling from within the EU.
I’m afraid it looks like you’re wrong. https://twitter.com/HMRCgovuk/status/537214398855913472 (see the green box at the very bottom of the flowchart)
Re: EU’s New VAT Rules Could Create a Mess for Startups
#26As someone who sells digital software licenses, this is quite an baffling situation to experience. Currently, I live in Massachusetts, which does not require collecting sales tax on digital goods. According to these new laws, even though I live in the USA, and don't collect any address information for my customers, I now need to: 1. Collect address and IP address information 2. Register with a MOSS somewhere in the E…
> I'm almost considering shutting down sales to EU customers. Then someone will launch a business that will do the same you do, but complying with regulations. Taxes must be collected; without taxes, the welfare state collapses. You should know that, to be able to sell something in a market, you must understand its regulations first, and respect the decisions the citizens have taken (in this case, regarding taxes) th…
He understands that. His problem is that the bureaucracy to comply with the rules is too high, and I agree.
I have a SaaS service in the EU. I have always paid my taxes and I'm not against them. But I want to have a reliable and hopefully simple process to know how to process payments. The proposed changes are a bit PITA to everybody. I hope they will come with a simpler process, as it's scary all that I will have to do to add a foreign EU customer.
Re: EU’s New VAT Rules Could Create a Mess for Startups
#27The only positive I can see in this is that they apparently do accept "positive affirmation" from the customer with regards to their location. So if you have a dropdown box for their location and maybe a tickbox, it's legally acceptable as proof. Then I'm just left with a slightly annoying filing rather than a very annoying one.
That happens now though.
If I accidentally click UAE instead of UK then I save 20% on a whole host of products.
Re: EU’s New VAT Rules Could Create a Mess for Startups
#28Luckily we've found this: "Super simple (static) web service to grab VAT rates for all EU Member States, in preparation of the new 2015 VAT regulation." See: https://github.com/modmore/euvatrates.com
We've used this (for http://www.voyando.com) to change our software (ie. replaced a static VAT-variable for EU countries to a dynamic one based on what customers filled in during sign up). It was no more than 4 hours of work :-).
The (extra) tax filings are no more than a list with the different countries & VAT amounts. My bookkeeper/accountant will handle the rest ;-).
Re: EU’s New VAT Rules Could Create a Mess for Startups
#29Another early xmas present from the EU to all of us US-based businesses. Thanks, I guess.
I've noticed several things like this come down the pipe since I moved to Europe and started paying attention. It seems that they just really like to pass legislation to make it harder to run software businesses over here.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Anything that removes more potential competition from my businesses can only be a good thing.
Re: EU’s New VAT Rules Could Create a Mess for Startups
#30Once the infrastructure for this is in place, it wouldn't suprise me if they would apply it to other things as well.