[_delirium]

If a company does not sell to EU citizens, then yes, being based outside in the EU will let you avoid these rules. But if your goal is to sell to EU consumers, basing the company in Switzerland as your European base doesn't help, because for non-EU sellers (and from 1 January, for all sellers), VAT is charged based on the location of the customer; the location of the company is irrelevant. And Switzerland will generally enforce tax judgments of EU member states, so if you violate German law in your dealings with German citizens, being based in Switzerland isn't going to shelter you. If you sell services to a German, you'll be required to charge German VAT rates, regardless of whether the company is based in Germany or Switzerland.

Some larger Swiss-based companies were actually in favor of this change, because in some cases they have been at a VAT disadvantage relative to some EU-based companies, who were previously allowed to charge "source country" rates rather than "destination country" rates for digital services. Therefore Swiss providers selling to Germans were at a disadvantage to Luxembourg-based providers selling to Germans, because the Swiss provider had to charge German VAT, while the Luxembourg provider could charge the lower Luxembourg VAT. With the new "destination location" rules being applied across the board, including to EU-based companies, Luxembourg will lose its advantage vis-a-vis Switzerland there.

See: http://www.kpmg.com/global/en/issuesandinsights/articlespubl...

[throwaway78393]

I run a small software development shop, registered in Switzerland. We sell installable software in productized form. We also employ a local accounting firm to handle our accounting and advise on taxation matters. At the moment the state of affairs is such that we do NOT need to charge or to report VAT on any sales unless it's a sale to a Swiss customer. I had them double-check this and I also got a second opinion from another company. Not Swiss = No VAT, period. So, this -

   a Swiss supplier must charge the VAT rate of the EU 
   Member State where EU consumers are domiciled or the
   services are used and enjoyed

doesn't correlate with reality on my end. I can only guess that the discrepancy is due to this being specific to -

  Telecommunications and broadcasting companies, as 
  well as providers of electronic services to consumers

and not to installable software vendors.