Quote:
Originally Posted by Enemator
However:
- members that signup send their money to CCBill US, not CCBill EU. So they are not paying any VAT.
- Wires and Cheques are sent from CCBill US(BOA account).
So here's how I see it: members signs up, pays to an american company(so no VAT), american company pays you money, not the member.
It's all a bit grey.
|
Very few people know this, and very few people do this but VAT must be charged for any consumer within the EU regardless where you business is based and where the money flow.
You are allowed to have a certain amount of sales within the european union before you are forced to register for a VAT number, if you do not register and claim VAT yourself, the country where you need to pay the VAT as collected can be forced through based on where you had your first european union sale.
If you charge ?39.95 per month the VAT (let's just say 25% as it is in Denmark)can be set in the following way:
Price including VAT is ?39.95, the cost is then 31.96 and the VAT is ?7.99
Price without VAT is ?39.95, the VAT is then ?9,9875
If you get caught by authorities for not paying VAT, even as a US company, they will if you say "I did not collect VAT" be able to claim ?9.9875 per membership sold for the previous 5 years, if you say you did claim VAT and it was included in the price you need to pay "only" ?7.99 per membership. (it's possible to go 5 years back I believe)
One problem there may be for the governments is getting sufficient proof of transactions in the past to claim the money. To my knowledge this have not yet been tried in court for companies not based outside EU but have seen several cases in for domestic companies on foreign income.
My advise is seek legal guidance and see where it will be best for you to place your VAT residence.
On a spam note, with our Phone & SMS billing platform VAT and local taxes is always claimed and paid according to the tax regulations in the country where customer is based and you would have no VAT issues as it is B2B and we are not based in the European Union
Disclaimer: I have not followed up on changes in VAT reguations in the past 2 years and changes may have been done that make my reply useless and incorrect, seek legal guidance, a claim for 5 years worth of VAT can take a lot of people out of business!!!
Since it is a consumer tax and not a business tax they can require you to claim it for EU customers even if you are not a EU company (fair competition clause)