[throwaway41597]

Disclaimer: I don't know much about all this either

So a side effect seems that some companies which used to be exempted from collecting VAT will now kind of have to, thereby either raising prices or taking a cut of about 16.7% [1] in their revenues. Because you'd have to be crazy not to opt into the "mini one-stop shop" (who would want to register in every EU country?), so you register for collecting VAT although your revenue is low enough to qualify for exemption in your own country and the customer's.

That's even harder to swallow for companies delivering electronic services, as having a VAT number is not a huge money saver (paying VAT on web hosting isn't a huge burden).

Which countries lack VAT exemption? If there aren't many, it could be okay not to take customers from them.

[1] 1 - 1/1.2 = 0.167 as the average VAT is 20% in the EU

[rachelandrew]

A commenter on my post notes that it isn't just countries with a low threshold it's ALL other countries. That you are non-resident in. So essentially if you want to sell to the EU you have to register for MOSS and therefore have to be VAT registered.

It's crap. I hope I'm wrong or that something can be done to exempt small enterprises.

[throwaway41597]

Okay, it makes sense that you would have to register with every country to get an exemption.

The only hope is that this causes so much work to tax offices that they add a procedure to get the exemption in every country.

I'm not holding my breath as it seems VAT has only been increasing in its rate and span of subjected products :(