Making Sense of the New VAT Rules

Re:Making Sense of the New VAT Rules by Silhouette on Thursday January 29, 2015 @08:31AM (#8965962)

I've seen reports of people arguing along those lines to circumvent the new rules for now, e.g., selling software on CD that is posted to the purchaser with a free accompanying download. Some are trying a similar strategy without any physical element involved, but instead relying on the presence of some manual step, such as attaching a PDF to an e-mail sent by a real person rather than being a fully automated download.

I haven't seen anyone challenge the validity of the physical product workarounds so far, but note that similar rules are due to apply to physical sales as well as digital ones from next year, so this is probably a temporary reprieve at best.

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Re:Making Sense of the New VAT Rules by lukeredpath on Thursday January 29, 2015 @08:45AM (#8966024)

Has there been any concrete evidence that the EU plans to extend these rules to physical goods as I've only seen speculation.

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Re:Making Sense of the New VAT Rules by Silhouette on Thursday January 29, 2015 @11:13AM (#8966933)

For now, I'm trusting the comments from the various trade and campaign groups on that point. They've been in meetings I haven't with organisations like HMRC, and they all seem to be telling a similar story, though also with a similar lack of detail so far.

I completely agree that some official guidance we can all see and act on is well overdue on this point. There are several issues connected to the new EU VAT rules that are being widely reported but I'm having trouble finding official citations; probably the most important one I've come across is the legality or otherwise of declining to sell to customers in the EU but outside your home nation in an attempt to avoid the whole mess.

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