[patio11]

No, I don't.

I'm of two minds on this:

1) I think I'm in compliance, since most EU nations appear to have a floor for sales numbers beneath which you don't have to remit VAT payments. I am nowhere near any of the floors I am aware of.

2) Hypothetically supposing that that exception was eliminated, it does not strike me as obvious that a country on the other side of the world which I have never visited has the moral right to make their revenue problems into my development to-do list for tomorrow. I understand that this gives me a theoretical pricing advantage against EU firms, but seeing as how they have a vote on EU taxation policies and I do not, that should ideally not be too difficult to correct. If they can't convince the EU polity that their international competitiveness is more important than all the things the EU buys with their tax money, well, still not seeing why that is my problem.

[_delirium]

On #2, the traditional argument was a bit clearer when it was a world of mainly physical goods. The argument was that you could ignore the EU all you wanted as long as you didn't do business there, but if you chose to commercially import goods into their countries (whether by commercial freight or by mailing packages), then you'd have an obligation to look into what the law surrounding imports was. And of course if you flew to the country and started providing services in person, you'd have an obligation to obey their laws.

But now that you can provide services remotely, the obligations are indeed less clear.

[jibjab]

Thanks for your reply.

Regarding #1: True, it seems that there are some countries like the UK [1] have thresholds, but others don't seem to have any (eg Ireland [2]). No matter if they exist or not, there are still companies that have large EU based turnover (Github, 37signals), and they too don't charge VAT.

Regarding #2: I agree. It's not that I want to convince anyone to start charging VAT. I'm simply trying to understand why this directive exists and why no one seems to care :-).

[1] http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/start/register/when-to-register.h...

[2] "(g) A non-established person supplying taxable goods or services in the State is obliged to register and account for VAT irrespective of the level of turnover." http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/registration/index.html#reg...

[jcr]

You might also want to read up on the "Double Irish" and "Dutch Sandwich" approaches to dodging EU taxation. But if you're at work, searching those phrases without safe search might be a bit interesting... ;)

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_44/b42010431...

[rmc]

Ireland has a low corporation tax 12½%, to avail of that you need to incorporate an Irish company. This has nothing to do with Ireland's VAT rate (of about 21%)