VAT rule change

[Ghastly McNasty]

I'd say 95%-100% of the digital download sellers on Comicsy are not VAT registered. Anyone who wishes to sell downloads via Comicsy must register for VAT via the VATMOSS system (which means a monthly VAT submission and having to keep records of customers  details for 10 years) AND then, AND THEN, have to pay VAT on any physical copies they sell too.

[Banners]

That sucks. Hopefully you can find a way to work it all out.

[Professor Bear]

Won't they paying the VAT by using Paypal?  I would have thought if this directly affected Comicsy users there would have been some word from the site itself by now.

[IndigoPrime]

That's my understanding of it, having read around a bit: if you're using a payment provider, the onus is on THEM to deal with this crap. The problem is when you are doing the card transactions (such as some software/service devs I know).

[Banners]

The Telegraph: Victory for UK micro firms as HMRC tweaks EU VAT MOSS Rule

[Ghastly McNasty]

[EDIT: I'd just written this prior to the link above being added but still worth posting my rant.]

Sadly not. Even prior to this rule coming in, if your business were VAT registered and you were selling your products using Paypal, you wouldn't expect Paypal to step in and deal with VAT in anyway. The onus is on the seller of the goods to pay their taxes. Paypal will pay VAT on whatever they scrape off. But the rest is your earnings and your VAT bill.

The 'payment providers' you mention, IndigoPrime, are in fact the 'service providers' - not Paypal - but sites like Etsy, Craftsy and the rest. As these sites take payment then pay a portion to their sellers, the gov is pushing these to adapt and sort out VAT for its users. (The only real role Paypal will have in this is that they may be able to supply and store user info). However, if these sites have to change and pay more VAT on behalf of sellers, they'll push their prices up, meaning the sellers prices will have to rise, ruining whatever competitive edge indie businesses have against the big companies these very laws were set out to snare. Fucking madness.

[IndigoPrime]

Ah. And reading the Telegraph piece, that's a curious use of the word 'victory'. More like only getting punched in the face nine times rather than ten.

[Jim_Campbell]

Ah. And reading the Telegraph piece, that's a curious use of the word 'victory'. More like only getting punched in the face nine times rather than ten.

Yeah... I don't see any part of that Telegraph piece that qualifies as 'victory' since HMRC are only waiving the UK element of the VAT implications — you still have to jump through all the ridiculous hoops if you make sales anywhere else in the EU.

Cheers

Jim