VAT Victory - Surprising BAD NEWS About Tax Changes in Europe That Will Affect YOUR Online Business

[BlackHatX]

Here’s Surprising BAD NEWS
About Tax Changes in Europe
That Will Affect YOUR Online
Business. Yes, YOURS!
Learn What To Do, RIGHT NOW

You may know there’ll be changes
to European tax regulations.
But here’s what you DIDN’T know. . .


Think you’re not affected, because you don’t live in Europe? You should sit down. . .
Because there’s Good News and Bad News for the thousands of online business owners and solopreneurs who sell digital products and services online, direct to consumers worldwide.
So first, here’s the (slightly) Good news: The changes on 1 January 2015 mostly apply to what I call the “Amazon Trap.” But read on . . .
How it works now

Digital downloads and services sold to European retail consumers are taxed at different VAT (value added tax) rates of up to 27%. As of now, suppliers in Europe must charge the VAT rate of the country from which the sale is made.
Rodney, who lives in Manchester UK, sells an ebook to Patrick, who lives in Dublin, Ireland. In the UK, the VAT rate is 20% so Rodney adds that to the price which Patrick must pay.
How it works from 2015

From January, suppliers must charge the VAT rate of the country where the purchaser lives.
The VAT rate in Ireland is 23% so, from 1 January, Rodney must charge Patrick 23% VAT for his ebook, not 20%.
Why do I call this the “Amazon Trap?” Well, Amazon cleverly based their European operation in Luxembourg where the VAT rate is 15%. For now, if Patrick buys something on Amazon, he’ll only pay 15% tax.
But that didn’t go down well in Brussels – the “capital” of the European Union. So the rules have been changed, effectively catching Amazon, Google and Apple in a VAT trap.
It means, from 1 January, if Patrick in Dublin buys something on Amazon then he’ll be paying not 15% but 23% VAT.
And now for the BAD NEWS

You’re still sitting down, right? Because here’s the bad news.
No, I mean it’s the REALLY BAD news.
Because you’ll be surprised to learn VAT has already been due on any and all sales of digital goods and services to retail consumers in Europe, since 2003. They’ll just start enforcing it from 1 January.
You might be a US-based business (or Canadian, Australian, etc) and you’re not ‘tax-resident’ in the EU. So you’re wondering what this has to do with you?
Well, if you make a sale of any “electronically supplied service” to a customer in the UK, or any European country, then you’ve just become a “non-resident seller” and you’re obliged to collect and pay VAT on your sales!
Yes, really.
This applies to ANY Digital Goods and Services – nearly everything that can be bought and then downloaded or accessed online. From ebooks and e-courses, to recorded training videos, music and audio downloads.
You’re required to be registered.
Actually, you’re supposed to register BEFORE making any sales to European customers, so if someone from the UK has bought and downloaded your hot new ebook about Facebook Advertising, then you’re already in breach of European law!
This is a joke, right?
Um, no. According to the bureaucrats in Brussels, a non-resident seller is obliged to be properly registered for VAT in each of the 28 European countries in which the seller expects to have consumers.
Or else you can make a one-time choice to use a simplified registration and filing procedure to meet your European compliance obligations. That’s the new MOSS, the Mini-One-Stop-Shop, which applies from 1 January 2015.
But you still need to calculate and report the VAT amounts for each EU member state in which you’ve made sales of your digital products.
Say what? How the HECK will I do that?
Right now, we all rely on automated systems for selling digital products. If ‘human intervention’ is needed for each transaction, the costs will quickly make the online sales model unworkable.
You’re not Amazon or Apple but, unless you track sales manually, from now on you’ll need sophisticated and expensive billing systems for matching every single European sales transaction to the country of the buyer, so you can collect the proper VAT due for each country.
“HELP! What can I do?”
One of the big accounting firms says every European business or ‘non-resident seller’ (that’s YOU) needs to make an Action Plan:

• Identify all sales channels you’re using for digital products
• Confirm the contractual relationship for each sales channel
• Identify the European jurisdictions in which you make sales
• Confirm your need for VAT registration on a country-by-country basis or assess whether the MOSS scheme is suitable
• Register for VAT in each jurisdiction – or – register for MOSS and set up a reporting and payment system for each jurisdiction.
• Decide whether you’ll offer a single VAT- inclusive price and absorb the different VAT rates as a cost, or offer an individual retail price for each jurisdiction.
• If you sell through online retailers, such as Amazon or Apple iTunes, be ready for price negotiations because they’ll likely want publishers to absorb the increased VAT costs.

Sales Page: http://thebizadviser.com/vat-victory

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[LukaLuka]

I live in Europe and I can tell you, I fucking hate Brussels. They are a bunch of fucking Nazis that are regulating the size of your turd and squeezing us to death with taxes and fines. The EU has to go. Preferably in smoke and flames...

...this shit here will force small businesses out of the online world and only big ass corporations will be able to keep up with the rules. I FUCKING hate them...