[dorfuss]

I'm not sure what do you mean by "automatically". Of course different EU countries have different rates, but some countries also have internally many different rates, and that depends on what is your product or who is your client (e.g. business vs governmental organisation vs private school vs institute for blind people could all have different rates for the same product). There is also a difference between 0 rate and exempt.

VAT is generally a huge pain in the ass if you don't have flat rates. This leads to absurds like coffee with milk has a different rate than milk with coffee. There are court cases in which they rule what kind of construction of a book shelf gets which VAT rate.

And it gives multiple opportunities for all sorts of abuses, including my favourite one: you open two companies, you sell same products internally with different VAT rates (like coffee+milk example), and the difference becomes your un-taxed profit. Perfectly legal.

This is why you have the Big Four consulting companies (I worked for one).

Tl:dr When you grow bigger employ a couple of good accountants.