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Comment by mgbmtl | Hacker News Reader

Are there any good resources to understanding VAT as a non-EU company? So many resources out there just want to sell their VAT-related services or assume we're a megacorp, but I've never had an EU client complain that we're not charging VAT (small shop, b2b only).

edit: thank you for the responses!

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I don't have a good resource that summarizes the various rules, but high-level this is the mechanism:

For B2B: 1. If the seller is extra-EU, and the buyer in EU, no VAT is charged 2. If the seller is in one EU country, and the buyer is in a different EU country, no VAT is charged by the seller, but the buyer has to do a "VAT reverse charge" (it still nets to 0€ paid, but there is extra paperwork involved) 3. If the seller and the buyer are in the same EU country, they charge the regular VAT rate

For B2C things are a lot more complicated for cross-border transactions, and there is a difference between selling goods and services. For digital goods, as a seller, you would need to charge the VAT of the country of the _buyer_, and gather two pieces of evidence about the country the buyer resides in, then remit the taxes through the VAT MOSS system. Not fun. That's why Paddle & co are popular.

Selling services B2B cross border should not charge vat, so you should be good.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/cross-bor...

> b2b only

That’s be why. Only the retailer charges VAT, though you may want to be really sure you’re only dealing with companies (ianal and ianac, no idea how case law handles individual padding themselves as companies).

When a business buy anything from a foreign seller they should buy it without VAT and calculate and pay VAT on their own.

It all depends on where the service is rendered.

Part hosting, part consulting.

For Canada this causes weird situations: we have to charge our province's taxrate to clients in other provinces, and their taxrate if it's consulting.

However, we don't have to charge taxes for US customers for either (to my non-accountant understanding).

Hosting services are provided where the servers are located, consulting services are provided where the service is performed, for instance if you are consulting 'on site' then it might be construed that you are delivering the service in that location. This can get pretty tricky. Our company is lucky in the sense that the report that we write is clearly sent to the customer which has nothing to do with on-site interviews, there is a very good chance the customer and the target are in different countries (or even on different continents). So we have a very clear tax situation which is just based on the location of the customer and not on the service rendered or where it was rendered because we don't actually work for the target company.

But in many cases it is not that simple. The best thing you could do if you want to avoid long term risk (up to 7 years where we legally reside) is to ask a tax lawyer for their legal opinion. It will still not absolve you from the responsibilities but it will give you much more support in case there is a problem.

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