paulears Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Not sure if anyone here supplies electronic services via the net or email, but the VAT rules are changing. info here EU BUSINESSES supplying:1. Business in another EU country - No VAT charged. Customer must account for the tax (reverse-charge mechanism).2. Consumer in another EU country - You must charge VAT in the EU country where the customer belongs (not where the business is based). If you read the extremely complicated rules it's based around a Member One Stop Shop - and seems to mean that even when somebody is NOT registered for VAT here, they must still register in the country a person downloading your material lives in!Under the Union scheme, a taxable person is a business (be it a company, a partnership or a sole proprietor) which has established its business or has a fixed establishment in the territory of the EUMy God this is complicated. I run from one of my servers a download site for specialist downloadable products - for a client of mine. The material is hosted on my site, but he receives the payments direct, and I take a slice for running it. At present, I simply get the total number and value of the downloads, but only he has access to the Paypal account - so I don't see where people actually live, and have not really been that bothered. As it seems to apply to anything delivered electronically, it would seem to apply to anything - documents, images, music, video etc that is delivered electronically rather than physically. I don't think it will impact me that much, but the scheme is being explained as the result of careful negotiations and workshops - yet seems damn complicated to me Probably worth reading a few of the links and finding the paracetamol bottle if you do this kind of stuff regularly - although there seems no opt out for just occasional foreign business. So If your customer is in Greece, you need to log into Greek VAT and pay them what you charged the downloader, then again for Spain, and again .......... Wow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryson Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 It almost seems as though it's designed to generate offences to charge Internet companies you don't like with. Think file-sharing, porn, or other things that are technically obeying the law but the governments disapprove of.,, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Being familiar with the regulations in all 30 ish countries could be hard. HMRC are not fully familiar with the UK regs, some of it is still waiting for a court and case law to determine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete McCrea Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 HMRC had issues with our last VAT return. We had to tell them how the rules apply, and after a bit of back and forth, we were proved correct... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solstace Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 Yowsers... That does look tricky. Almost as if to discourage online business... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 Think file-sharing, porn, or other things that are technically obeying the law but the governments disapprove of.,, All they will do is relocated to somewhere out of reach of the regulations, and carry on as before. It's small businesses, like Paul's client, that will bear the brunt of this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryson Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 Im not saying it'll work... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted December 13, 2014 Author Share Posted December 13, 2014 The Government have clarified it: "Section 3: Registration for MOSS by businesses currently below the UK VAT Registration threshold (£81,000)If you supply digital services to a customer in another EU member state, you must account for VAT to the tax authorities in that member state and at that member state’s VAT rate. So you do not have to register for VAT in every member state where you have customers, HMRC has developed a MOSS service for UK-based suppliers of digital services. You can find guidance on MOSS at Register for and use the VAT Mini One Stop Shop. Although it is a condition of registering for the MOSS that you must have a UK VAT registration number to identify the business, you will not lose your UK VAT registration threshold." So - you need to register for VAT and get a number, but you're not able to charge and recover VAT, how confusing! How will people tell the difference? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmills Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 The other fun it is the interaction with the uk law requiring consumer sales to be priced inclusive of VAT, when the website may not know where you are intil you tell it at checkout... Interesting times. Regards, Dan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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