Making Sense of the New VAT Rules

Re:Making Sense of the New VAT Rules by mstolpm on Thursday January 29, 2015 @08:00AM (#8965803)

The rules apply to digital products AND services (e.g. memberships, cloud storage ...). You'd need to physically ship something to avoid the rules, but then, other burdens (import/export/customs/taxes) come in place.

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Re:Making Sense of the New VAT Rules by hobo_mark on Thursday January 29, 2015 @08:40AM (#8966001)

What if, and I'm just thinking out loud here, the digital product (software) was free but you had to receive an activation code (by snail mail) to use it?

Terrible user experience for sure, but under what taxation would this fall?

I have read 'masters of doom' last night and I can't believe we used to ship around 'installation disks wrapped in ziploc bags', but maybe it's time to get back to that? j/k

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Re:Making Sense of the New VAT Rules by lukeredpath on Thursday January 29, 2015 @08:44AM (#8966017)

Grey area IMO and different EU tax authorities may have differing views, just to make things more complicated.

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Re:Making Sense of the New VAT Rules by jakobegger on Thursday January 29, 2015 @11:22AM (#8967011)

you also have to pay VAT on physical products when you import them. When I receive a package from the US, I have to pay VAT and customs fees on delivery (unless the sender declares it as a "present", but that's illegal)

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Re:Making Sense of the New VAT Rules by hobo_mark on Thursday January 29, 2015 @12:26PM (#8967547)

There is usually a threshold under which no VAT is levied (different for each country however).

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Re:Making Sense of the New VAT Rules by dia80 on Thursday January 29, 2015 @08:44AM (#8966016)

There aren't any of those. That's pretty much the point of the EU.

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