TTIP Documents Revealed • Hacker News Board

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#91

Post by pas » Mon, May 02, 2016, 11:46 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #88

pas wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's selling the line that it doesn't protect governments as if it were a bad thing. It protects the companies in those states against the other governments for example, which is a good thing. More people die because of coal/oil/gas power plants than because of nuclear ones. So now, instead of inspecting their own plants, which they have the best position to do so, they're relying on who knows what form of power gene…

It's understandable that you feel that by submitting the UK to an unknown even higher court you take a risk, but a lot of people on the other hand feel that it's going to be a boon to restrict the actions (and especially future actions) of their State. The European Commission conducted possibly the largest public consultation in history and found almost unanimous opposition either to ISDS or to TTIP in its entirety,…

It might have been the largest consultation, though I haven't heard of it.

There are millions of people in the EU currently quite grateful for the fact that their country is dependent on the EU, so their government can't dismantle their democracy at light-speed. Look at the situation with the populist right-wing governments in Poland and Hungary.

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#92

Post by pas » Tue, May 03, 2016, 12:11 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #87

pas wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, I still think we don't have the full picture. For example online tangible product sales is not covered, as it's not a service. (If I understand the explanatory notes correctly.) But selling software is covered, because you can electronically deliver it. Bah. Yes, the crossword or sudoku provider has to fiddle with VAT, just as an app store. But if the crosswords are made by humans, then it's not an electronic ser…

I'm sorry, I'm trying to be polite and constructive here, but please understand that this is an issue where some of us spent days or even weeks doing little more than understanding what the new rules actually require and then updating our systems and records to account for them. We talked to lawyers. We talked to our elected representatives. Urgent questions were asked at the highest levels of government. And the loo…

I (we) did the same, as we are selling tickets and goods (digital and umm, regular) online, furthermore do it as a whitelabel platform, so it's definitely a service, but our billing to our clients is different than their billing to the end users (though we handle it for them).

So, I know the problems, I'm aware of the clusterfuck, but it's simply exactly as bad from our point of view as it was before (and at least there is an option to file VAT for the whole EU, which was non existent before, even if implementing it is a pain in the ass).

I don't know why you did not have to - in a legal sense - care about the location of the customer before. Selling something to an EU citizen in a state different from the state your business is established in meant that you were doing business in that state, hence you were supposed to register at their tax office and file and pay VAT on behalf of your customers. Just nobody did, because fuck that.

Anyhow, it's going to be years before it's sorted out. (The "action plan" is to be presented at the end of 2017, http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/action_pla... )

Also, there still seems to be an exemption for small businesses in a lot of member states ( http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/tax... )

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#93

Post by Silhouette » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:38 AM UTC

pas wrote: post #92

Silhouette wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, I'm trying to be polite and constructive here, but please understand that this is an issue where some of us spent days or even weeks doing little more than understanding what the new rules actually require and then updating our systems and records to account for them. We talked to lawyers. We talked to our elected representatives. Urgent questions were asked at the highest levels of government. And the loo…

I (we) did the same, as we are selling tickets and goods (digital and umm, regular) online, furthermore do it as a whitelabel platform, so it's definitely a service, but our billing to our clients is different than their billing to the end users (though we handle it for them). So, I know the problems, I'm aware of the clusterfuck, but it's simply exactly as bad from our point of view as it was before (and at least th…

I don't know why you did not have to - in a legal sense - care about the location of the customer before. Selling something to an EU citizen in a state different from the state your business is established in meant that you were doing business in that state, hence you were supposed to register at their tax office and file and pay VAT on behalf of your customers.

That was never the case, at least not for any business I've been part of. We've always had to charge VAT to EU customers, whether in our home nation or any other member state, but it was charged at our home nation's rate previously and was counted on our normal VAT return. If you think that policy was incorrect and we should have been registering with every relevant EU member state individually, all I can tell you is that two different accountancy firms, independent tax helplines we had access to, and guidance directly from our national tax authority all seemed to disagree with you at various points prior to the recent changes.

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm only talking about the B2C sales here. B2B has always worked differently, and there are separate mechanisms for reporting cross-border B2B sales within the EU and dealing with the associated VAT.

Also for the avoidance of doubt, we're in the EU (the UK, specifically). The rules for businesses based in EU member states are somewhat different to the rules for those outside.

Re: TTIP Documents Revealed

#94

Post by pas » Tue, May 03, 2016, 10:19 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #93

pas wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (we) did the same, as we are selling tickets and goods (digital and umm, regular) online, furthermore do it as a whitelabel platform, so it's definitely a service, but our billing to our clients is different than their billing to the end users (though we handle it for them). So, I know the problems, I'm aware of the clusterfuck, but it's simply exactly as bad from our point of view as it was before (and at least th…

I don't know why you did not have to - in a legal sense - care about the location of the customer before. Selling something to an EU citizen in a state different from the state your business is established in meant that you were doing business in that state, hence you were supposed to register at their tax office and file and pay VAT on behalf of your customers. That was never the case, at least not for any business…

Sorry, you are right, and I'm also probably wrong, because I remembered the preparation for the recent changes and forgot about the calm times. (And we are technically not in the EU.)