Old news to me, this has been a topic of discussion for a while.
The extraterritorial law, compliance and enforcement is of question.
If you are selling B2C in the EU from outside the EU you need to charge the right VAT rate.
Welcome to the cluster fuck ...
Quote:
European VAT: 10 Things Online Sellers Need To Know About Taxes On Digital Goods And Services - Forbes
1. Since 2003, VAT is due on any and all sales of digital goods and services to retail consumers in Europe.
VAT law in place since 2003 requires a US business that is not tax resident in the EU (a nonresident seller) to collect and pay VAT on all digital goods and services sold in the EU consumer market. The VAT is due at the VAT rate of the European country in which the consumer is located. This is typically the country where that consumer resides. Before any sales in Europe take place, the nonresident seller is obliged to be properly registered for VAT. This means registering for VAT in each European country in which the seller expects to have consumers, or to make a one-time election for a simplified registration and filing procedure to meet its European compliance obligation. Despite having been in place since 2003, there seems to be very little public awareness of this important European VAT obligation for US sellers. ...
... 5. US groups can no longer avoid VAT compliance complexity by setting up sales subsidiaries in low VAT rate jurisdictions like Luxembourg.
Prior to 2015, a US business could set up an e-commerce supply platform in Europe and take advantage of the one business, one VAT rate for digital consumer sales across Europe. This rule will be repealed and replaced by a rule which taxes the sale of digital services at the VAT rate of the country in which the consumer is located. This place of consumption rule of taxation is the same rule to which nonresident sellers are subject today. The 2015 change adapts the place of consumption as the taxation rule for all sellers, wherever located. This VAT change will have no impact on the corporate tax rate competition between European countries, however. ...
... VAT enforcement efforts focus on the seller, not the consumer. One of the potential weak links of the nonresident VAT rules described is the lack of an enforcement mechanism, formal or informal, for EU countries to obtain the assistance of third countries like the US to help in collecting VAT due by companies based in the US and selling into the EU market. As the OECD quote at the outset of this list suggests, European tax authorities have relied primarily on the good faith of nonresident sellers to sign up for one of the two compliance options available to such sellers since 2003.
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