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Comment by logifail | Hacker News Reader

> In Finland and AFAIK all Nordics, all invoices must be VAT inclusive. If you are selling up until 15k EUR year you can do it VAT free, which is too small to be considered a professional business. Alternatively if you are selling services outside the EU (freelancing internationally).

Isn't there provision for reverse charge (effectively zero VAT) on B2B transactions where both parties are within the EU?

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It‘s not zero VAT. It just reverses who has to pay the VAT. E.g Microsoft invoices me at 0% VAT but I have to report and pay 19% to the state. (b2b only)

I would still call it zero VAT.

What happens is that you debit and credit the same VAT amount in the books, effectively deducting and zeroing it immediately.

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

Uh ? No. I don’t pay for VAT if I buy anything out of Belgium - because it would create a big administrative mess of pay back between member state.

Which is the stupidest system internally : get paid vat, paid it to the state minus the VAT you’re owned as business for whatever you’ve bought. Loss of time and energy all around.

Between countries, yes. Domestically, you invoice businesses with VAT, hold on to the VAT money and quarterly deposit it to the tax authorities (minus the VAT for deductible expenses).

> (effectively zero VAT) on B2B transactions

Businesses don't actually pay VAT, they just act as collectors for it. If the VAT balance for some business is negative, they actually get it returned by the tax authority.

Invoiced VAT, zero VAT, reverse charges in B2B are just an implementation detail that doesn't affect bottom line.

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