[adwf]

>if those affected had just bothered to try.

How about: If those affected had even known that this change was happening.

I'd certainly heard that they were changing the VAT rules to crack down on the likes of Amazon. That I'd now need to charge VAT based on country of consumer. That's not the crappy part of the legislation as I currently don't need to charge any VAT at all in the UK.

I hadn't heard that my VAT threshold was being invalidated

I hadn't heard that I'd need to keep records for 10 years (currently the longest I need to keep anything is 6 years).

I hadn't heard that I'd need to register as a Data Controller (as I now need to store personal info for 10 years). This leaves me liable for massive fines if anything goes wrong security-wise in the next 10 years.

It's basically a massive cockup that was targeted at Amazon, Google, Apple and the like, but has instead hit small business startups and independent traders the hardest.

[speleding]

Good points, awareness certainly is an issue. I found out a few months ago and just finished updating the payment system for my site. I have learned a few more interesting gotchas:

- You are responsible for verifying the location of your buyer (how? who knows!)

- It is not enough to know the country code of your buyer. For example the Canary Islands have country code ES but have a different VAT rate from mainland Spain

- Some VAT rates can be fractional, so you can run into problems if you were using integer calculations in cents to prevent rounding errors (thankfully, for digital services all VAT numbers are round number starting this year, let's hope it stays that way)

- If you register for a MOSS then you pay VAT in euros, but you may have charged your customer in a local currency (GBP, DKK, CZK or SEK). You need to use the exchange rate at the day of the sale

This is just the top of my head, there are probably a bunch of minor issues I forgot.

[Silhouette]

- If you register for a MOSS then you pay VAT in euros, but you may have charged your customer in a local currency (GBP, DKK, CZK or SEK). You need to use the exchange rate at the day of the sale

I'm not sure this is exactly correct. For the UK, the guidance[1] at the moment says:

"If you charge or invoice customers in a currency other than the one used by the MSI and you record that price in your accounts in the foreign currency, you must:

- convert it into the MSI currency at the end of each quarter

- use the conversion rate published by the European Central Bank (ECB) on the last working day of the quarter

However, if to meet VAT invoicing or other accounting requirements you convert the foreign currency into the MSI currency using an agreed published daily or monthly conversion rate, you can use this converted figure when completing your quarterly VAT MOSS return."

In the above, "Member State of Identification (MSI) is the state in which you’ve registered for VAT MOSS."

So it looks as though there are three possibilities here:

1. If you charge customers in your own native currency, then you just have to apply their location's tax rate on the transaction, instead of applying your local tax rate as at present.

2. If you charge customers in their own currency (or any other that isn't your native one) then you have two options:

2a. You convert the amount charged to your native currency at the time of the charge, and use that figure and the customer location's tax rate to calculate the tax due.

2b. You record the transaction in its actual currency at the time of the charge, and then later you convert to your native currency according to the standardised exchange rate published by the ECB at the end of each quarter, use that figure to calculate the tax due, and use these figures when you file your MOSS return for the quarter that just finished.

But I'm not an accountant, and like many here I've spent too much time in recent weeks just trying to get straight answers and figure out what all the "guidance" really means, not to mention trying to find out minor details like what the current tax rates to use for each location actually are (including variations within individual member states) and how we're supposed to keep up with any changes in the future. So don't take my word for anything, I'm just trying to interpret some official guidance like everyone else...

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-supplying-dig...

[speleding]

Interesting. I got my information from calling the tax authorities and ask, but I'm based in the Netherlands so their guidance may be different from that in the UK.

[Silhouette]

Doesn't the Netherlands use the Euro? If so, then I think the information we have been given is consistent. For you, the MSI currency would be Euro, while for me in the UK, it would be GBP. Each of us would pay any tax due to foreign tax authorities via our own country's MOSS in our local currency, but if we charged a customer in a different currency then we would have to convert it in one of the two ways I mentioned before.