Disclaimer: I don't know much about all this either<p>So a side effect seems that some companies which used to be exempted from collecting VAT will now kind of have to, thereby either raising prices or taking a cut of about 16.7% [1] in their revenues. Because you'd have to be crazy not to opt into the "mini one-stop shop" (who would want to register in every EU country?), so you register for collecting VAT although your revenue is low enough to qualify for exemption in your own country and the customer's.<p>That's even harder to swallow for companies delivering electronic services, as having a VAT number is not a huge money saver (paying VAT on web hosting isn't a huge burden).<p>Which countries lack VAT exemption? If there aren't many, it could be okay not to take customers from them.<p>[1] 1 - 1/1.2 = 0.167 as the average VAT is 20% in the EU
I was interested to see a take on how this affects App Store sales[1]:<p>"Apple has structured its current agreement so that they act as your agent each time an e-service is downloaded... UK businesses only have one B2B customer, Apple SARL in Luxembourg, so for a vast majority of businesses selling on Apple’s App Store platform, these sales will be continue outside the scope of UK VAT and this change won’t affect them.<p>"For UK businesses selling e-services on Android/Google Play, the agreement is currently structured in a way that the business sells directly to the EU customer. It will therefore be the businesses responsibility to account for, and collect, the correct amount of VAT based on each customer’s location and pay this over to the local tax authorities."<p>[1] <a href="http://www.jeffreyshenry.com/important-vat-changes-technology-and-digital-businesses" rel="nofollow">http://www.jeffreyshenry.com/important-vat-changes-technolog...</a>
This looks like a nightmare for small European businesses selling digital products. Thankfully I should be shielded from the worst of it it because:
-my business is already registered for VAT
-my payment processor (Avangate) take care of all the VAT issues
This seems very bad, I'm assuming this applies to all customers whether businesses or not, so here are a few potential gotchas I see-<p>1. You sell to an individual who is not in the country that their payment information is related to and is not delivered to that country, do you charge VAT based on the payment information alone or do you have to physically verify that they are in the country claiming the VAT?<p>2. Prepaid CC can have false information, how do you determine is it is true so you can charge the right VAT?<p>3. Fraud, if you sell something to a fraudster, do you have to find out which country the fraudster was in to determine VAT you owe after the fact?<p>4. What about Bitcoin transactions where no location information is known?
Am I correct in thinking that everything carries on as before if you're a UK based Ltd, VAT registered and the only sales you make to EC based clients are to entities with a VAT number? Basically, the place of supply remains the UK and you report EC sales in your quarterly EC sales list as before?
Is this being done to remove competitive advantage some enjoy by being from lower tax countries or is this more of aligning sales of digital product with physical?
The author's solution seems to be "Let’s crowdsource this".<p>I think this is a bandage. Trying to address one problem, while ignoring the root cause. How about, "thank you very much, please put me in jail, I don't care anymore"? (While you bailout TBTF banks once again?)<p>"Governments" are the thugs that protect the big economic interests. The big economic interests, pay the protection money, "bribes", "donations". It's symbiotic. You, me, we, are the slaves.<p>The bribes, are a lot for the few politicians, they are happy and rich, and nothing, compared to be able to go on having slaves, happy and big profits, for the big economic interests.<p>You, you try to "crowdsource" "solutions" about the fact that your chains got heavier.