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Comment by mytailorisrich | Hacker News Reader

If you are not in Europe, don't specifically target EU customers, and are small, I would simply ignore the GDPR.

They may be able to ignore the GDPR, but they can't ignore the VAT requirement. The problem is, VAT gives them constructive knowledge about who is in the EU and who isn't.

I would never advise to dodge taxes but pragmatically it also depends on the volume of rateable sales they do, or expect to do, in the EU. If you don't target EU customers and get one once in a while on small ticket digital items (I suppose for most physical items VAT will be charged to receipient when going through customs), I don't think many people will bother with EU VAT... Same for foreign customers from any countries, really. Let's say you get a customer from Brazil, are you going to check all Brazilian laws and regulations first and register with the Brazilian tax office if legally required? Frankly, probably not.

Personally, foreign regulations are not something I would spend time on until I start getting traction from the relevant country, otherwise it's a real rabbit hole.

Yes they can ignore the VAT if they operate outside of the EU. It's up to the importer to pay the tax in that case. National posts and delivery companies have a standardized procedure for it. It's done in the same sweep with duty fees.

And even if the seller is based inside the EU they don't necessarily need to care about VAT - the limit is around 100k EUR yearly revenue (varies by state).

> Yes they can ignore the VAT if they operate outside of the EU. It's up to the importer to pay the tax in that case. National posts and delivery companies have a standardized procedure for it.

Yes, but... there is usually some "processing fee" for the customer when it is done this way, so it depends on what they are selling. For instance, if they are selling $10000 items, then yes, the customer probably won't mind too much a $30 processing fee additional to a VAT of about $2000. However, if they are selling $5 items, the post office will still ask its $30 processing fee, even if the VAT is only $1... And, the customer will scream murder, refuse the parcel, etc.

Yes they do that, but you have an opportunity to "do it yourself" - which amounts to just signing a paper they give you and paying. But perhaps that varies by state too - where I live this postal fee is 5 EUR only and they don't charge it for items under 20 EUR.

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