How many of you are aware that you may have to start paying European taxes?
 

Under a new law that has been passed in the EU from July 1st 2003 any internet based company selling services or goods to customers inside the EU will have to pay the member state of their customer/client the equivalent V.A.T (Value Added Tax) Rate.

This in itself is not a big problem, online business have been paying taxes for many years, the problems start to occur when you take a look at the current state of the V.A.T system in the EU state members on an individual basis.

The following list shows the percentage of V.A.T that you will need to add to your clients bills if they are located inside a member state of the EU:

Austria - 20% VAT
Belgium - 21% VAT
Denmark - 25% VAT
Finland - 22% VAT
France - 19.6% VAT
Germany - 16% VAT
Greece - 18% VAT
Ireland - 21% VAT
Italy - 20% VAT
Luxembourg - 15% VAT
Netherlands - 19% VAT
Portugal - 17% VAT
Spain - 16% VAT
Sweden - 25% VAT
United Kingdom - 17.5% VAT

http://thewhir.com/features/euro-vat.cfm

ya, i'll cut them a check ASAP

Thats alittle redicules. I dont think we should have to pay shit. Whos with me.. heee "blunt":thumbsup

Gary how do you know if you have to send them a check. And who would the check go out to..

you don't pay anything, the member pays you and you forward that money to the government that they're from or however it works. its just a sales tax, which is bullshit and has no place in today's economy.

i like paying taxes so much, i'll send them all money.

holy crap those taxes are HIGH!!!

we Americans will pretend it doesn't exist. :)

have you paid your iguana tax lately?

Ah the beauty of the internet...

They can come to my house in California and collect if they can avoid the 00 buck shot from my Mossberg.

Ya, good luck collecting.

Maybe they'll make a deal with Georgie - non payers will be deemed Enemy Combatants and deported.

The US doesn't even have reciprocal sales tax agreements with in the states. What makes anyone think they will force US Webmasters to pay a VAT.

Not too mention that those rates are insane at best.

Hang on I just did a search on the BBC world, as usual you guys have got it arse about face.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2968106.stm

It's if the seller lives within the EU.

I already pay taxes all my life........ :BangBang: :ak47:

Don't I remeber that started a war once.

Something about tea and Boston. :1orglaugh

(July 6) That's the day when a new directive from the European Union (EU) will come in to effect requiring non-EU companies that sell e-commerce and Internet services to pay Value Added Tax (VAT), which is levied on most European goods and services sold throughout Europe, on "digital" products or services sold to residents of EU member countries. The directive is applicable only to digital goods and services, and not to products delivered via traditional methods, as items sent by postal mail are already subject to VAT regulations.

The directive, approved after a meeting of EU finance ministers in late 2001, is designed to protect EU businesses that have seemingly been put at a disadvantage by VAT compliance requirements. Until now, most non-EU companies serving EU residents have not been required to charge VAT, despite the fact that virtually all EU businesses charge some sort of VAT-based fee. Many businesses have complained that this has allowed non-EU competitors to set lower prices for the same goods and services, effectively undercutting the local competition. This has drawn the ire of many companies, and even caused UK-based ISP Freeserve to wonder aloud if it would move its business elsewhere if the British government did not require AOL, which was quickly moving in on Freeserve?s territory, to charge VAT (the new EU directive will require AOL to charge VAT).

Under the directive, companies will be required to charge the current VAT rate of the EU country the purchaser resides in. VAT rates differ greatly between countries, reaching as high as 25 percent in Sweden to only 15 percent in Luxembourg (the UK's VAT rate is 17.5 percent, while Germany's is 16). The directive covers only business to consumer transactions, as many business to business transactions are already subject to tax regulations.

As one might guess, the Bush administration in the United States is anything but a proponent of the directive. A statement by Deputy Treasury Secretary Kenneth Dam late last year stressed that the U.S. government has "serious concerns" about the directive and that the proposal "may potentially be inconsistent with international trade obligations in the World Trade Organization." Kenneth pointed out that companies based in EU member nations are able to charge VAT according to the rate of the country they are based in, whereas U.S. sellers would be forced to charge VAT according to where the buyer is located, creating an uneven playing field. "In addition, U.S. sellers may be subject to more onerous administrative and compliance requirements than are placed on their EU competitors," he said.

The EU must be really hurting.

But I guess they could enforce it at the countries datacenters -- by making access lists to only allow connections to US companies that are in compliance :)

Things like this make me think our generation will live to see the end of the world after all.

We're actually on the phone with one of our processors trying to find out the entire story.

Yeh right, and the check is in the mail. Gimme a frickin break, like anyone is going to do that anytime soon.

Google's doing it..AOL is doing it...Ebay is doing it...most main stream companies already have it set up to go.

bad move.

I would suggest you look at the Euro/Dollar exchange rate for
a second to find out who's hurting more.....

The most easy way to enforce this is through the Billing
companies. They have customer and merchant info all there so
they can just say for every EU company that processes from
within the EU......you have to pay XXX in tax. When this
would happen I'm sure the Billing companies will adjust their
rates in a blink of an eye.

DynaMite :2 cents:

i could be misunderstanding your post, but i think you missed something...

Yes you miss the part where I was supposed to say.....that it
would only work for companies within the EU. The whole thing
is that right now even within the EU there are no real internet
taxes due to unfair competition. That's what they would like to
change.

So what will happen I guess is that within the EU they will start
enforcing it.......outside the EU they can't but at least they would
have the tax system operative within the EU to start with.

No matter how redigolous it all sounds within the EU they WILL
enforce it....no matter what happens outside the EU.....or at least
they WILL try


DynaMite:2 cents:

I'll be in line right behind Gary to pay :1orglaugh