News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:“I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?” by pja on Thursday December 18, 2014 @10:04AM (#8767482)
The point of the changes is to prevent large non-EU companies from going "VAT-shopping": like a certain well known advertising company claiming to sell all their services from a low VAT country when in fact all the business dealings are done in a tower block in the centre of London.

Now they have to charge whatever VAT rate each country within the EU thinks is appropriate for their citizens & there's no "race to the bottom" effect where Google, Apple, Amazon et al try to play different countries off against each other to get the lowest possible VAT rate.

The next stage is going to be tax changes to try and eliminate the profit shifting that all the non-EU companies do by setting up subsidiaries in different EU countries and "licensing" their IP to them at prices that just happen to match the profits made in that country.

Unfortunately, small online businesses are collateral damage in this particular fight.

Re:“I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?” by tormeh on Thursday December 18, 2014 @01:11PM (#8768725)
This. It was about time they got started.
Re:“I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?” by oh_sigh on Thursday December 18, 2014 @02:03PM (#8769004)
Does placing advertising on web property count as a digital good?
Re:“I’m in the US – what if I just ignore the EU VAT changes?” by jkulmala on Thursday December 18, 2014 @02:29PM (#8769172)
Yes, as said, they have pretty much covered everything.

You can find some more detailed information here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/revenue-and-custo...