EU paysite owners... How to deal with VAT?
 

How do you handle VAT if all your income is from a 3rd. party processor like ccbill?

It totally depends on what country you live.

As your countries tax guys, not gfy surfers.

It should be the same in every EU country. Either you sell in EU or outside EU.

No its not.
Every country in EU has its own taxes. And EU doesn't control it.
But I tell you something..
If you get paid by a company outside the EU no VAT is to be paid.

You really have no clue what you are talking about...

As a EU company and selling a product to a person inside EU I should add VAT on top of the price.
If I sell to someone outside EU I should not add VAT.

No matter what the tax/vat rate is in the customers country he will pay VAT according to the rate in my country.

Correct! :thumbsup There is no VAT payable on earnings from outside the EU.

Also.. tho this is usually just an interim measure.... split your operation up so that no element reaches the basic level where VAT applies.

Also... and this is a step further... form a corp in a jurisdiction outside the EU where "VAT" or sales tax does not apply and where there are lower tax rates and have the payments made to this corp. You will still have to pay, eg, personal tax on salaries drawn into your country.

I know that. My question is how to handle the VAT on your EU subscribers using a thirdparty biller.

Creative and legal :thumbsup

I don't see the reason why you should be paing VAT.
Your EU customers pay your processor, not you. And your processor then sends you money, you portion of it. So basically you are not directly connected to your EU customers, therefore you don't need to pay VAT.

havent seen any EU processor charging VAT

It has nothing to do with the processor. It's the company they are processing for that is responsible for charging it.

yes, that is true, but in reality its impossible to charge each EU customer the VAT through ccbill for example, some billers do it...
just tell all your customers are from US

As far as I remember Calvinguy this is a really fuzzy area. Tho the EU has issued some directives on this, but the practicalities of enforcing it may be harder.

If the billing company is, say (God forbid, iBill in Florida!), - since they "own" the client and Florida sales taxes are not applicable, - I'd think no VAT is payable.

It's only a thought - but the actual "source/jurisdiction" of the sale may be the guiding factor?

That's another hard one to support!! :-)

The whole principle of third party billing is that the "third party" takes responsibility for the sales and rebilling. The client of the TTP does not have control to charge sales to eg. website members.

In other words.... what is happening is traffic is being sent to a TTP and they conduct the sale which can come from any part of the world, and, they are not obliged to analyse member lists and account for some countries that may have tax laws re sales. Especially when that TTP does not operate under the laws of any country other than the one where they physically operate.

I think there is some stuff in TTP contracts that may apply... and the use of terms, like "commission" to webmasters - not "sales on behalf of webmasters" :-)