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[cameni]

Short/simplified version: from January 2015, customers from EU (except Slovakia) will have to pay VAT of their country of residence when purchasing Anteworld. There may be some delays and glitches until the payment system is updated to work correctly.

* * *

In effort to stop big corporations diverting sales for digital goods through low-VAT EU countries, EU introduced new VAT regulations valid from Jan 2015. Basically we now have to be VAT registered in each EU country, and pay a country-specific VAT for each customer, even if the total sum is way below the no-VAT thresholds in those countries. This, however, doesn't apply to the country of seller's residence (in our case Slovakia), where the threshold still applies. Since OT is not registered for VAT, Slovak customers won't have to pay the VAT.

This creates a lot of extra administrative burden, and frankly for many small businesses it's no longer worth the effort to continue selling digital goods to EU citizens. We just hope our accountant will be able to deal with it, and that Paypal will continue to work and will be able to provide all the identification data that EU wants.

More info:
http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/creative-business/vat-moss-facts-for-creative-professionals/
http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/nov/25/new-eu-vat-regulations-threaten-micro-businesses

[Acetone]

Short/simplified version: from January 2015, customers from EU (except Slovakia) will have to pay VAT of their country of residence when purchasing Anteworld. There may be some delays and glitches until the payment system is updated to work correctly.

* * *

In effort to stop big corporations diverting sales for digital goods through low-VAT EU countries, EU introduced new VAT regulations valid from Jan 2015. Basically we now have to be VAT registered in each EU country, and pay a country-specific VAT for each customer, even if the total sum is way below the no-VAT thresholds in those countries. This, however, doesn't apply to the country of seller's residence (in our case Slovakia), where the threshold still applies. Since OT is not registered for VAT, Slovak customers won't have to pay the VAT.

This creates a lot of extra administrative burden, and frankly for many small businesses it's no longer worth the effort to continue selling digital goods to EU citizens. We just hope our accountant will be able to deal with it, and that Paypal will continue to work and will be able to provide all the identification data that EU wants.

More info:
http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/creative-business/vat-moss-facts-for-creative-professionals/
http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/nov/25/new-eu-vat-regulations-threaten-micro-businesses

VATMOSS is a fine example of why thinking only things at big scale can generate more bad results than good ones. Only big players (Amazon, etc., so the ones targeted by this law) will be able to apply it correctly, for small buisnesses it may represent an insane amount of work for nothing.

A lot of independant creators in my field (e-books) are in a really bad situation because they won't manage anymore to sell their digital goods by themselves, but need to use a third party seller (as Amazon) wich can handle the VAT variations, something that all of them wanted to avoid. Some of them have already stated that they will stop their activities ot sell only in their own country.

The good news is that there is a large lobbying from small digital micro-buisnesses to change the law and create exceptions for small scale activities. The board of EU wich created the law stated that they where not aware that it would hurt small buisnesses because they thought most of them were using big third-party platforms...

[cameni]

They are unaware of many things. For example, we are supposed to verify the country of residence by two independent proofs, such as delivery address and IP, and store them for 10 years. How to do this is anybody's guess, especially when the payments are processed by 3rd parties such as Paypal and we can't get to that data. And Paypal obviously doesn't want any of the responsibility and the hassle.

For small payments the address doesn't have to be verified, so you can put anything there; doesn't matter since these are digital goods without physical delivery. IP can be disguised ... heck, there's already a Chinese portal that does this, so avoiding EU digital goods tax will be actually very simple.

[PytonPago]

They are unaware of many things. For example, we are supposed to verify the country of residence by two independent proofs, such as delivery address and IP, and store them for 10 years. How to do this is anybody's guess, especially when the payments are processed by 3rd parties such as Paypal and we can't get to that data. And Paypal obviously doesn't want any of the responsibility and the hassle.

For small payments the address doesn't have to be verified, so you can put anything there; doesn't matter since these are digital goods without physical delivery. IP can be disguised ... heck, there's already a Chinese portal that does this, so avoiding EU digital goods tax will be actually very simple.

 ... well, let just all people buy it masked trough China. And give there some random Chinese scripts into descriptions for fun.

P.S.: Seems, they really dont know what to do in Brussels anymore. But then ... we should push them under a legislation for taxing them political revenues at 90%, till their asleep at silvester party's !  

[ZeosPantera]

Time to pack up the office and move to the states Cameni. Then distribute straight through the Steam platform. It is the only way.

[PytonPago]

Time to pack up the office and move to the states Cameni. Then distribute straight through the Steam platform. It is the only way.

 Or make it the PirateBay dream way - just put da servers on a fleet of auto-piloted, solar drones flying circles in the pacific ocean. 

[Krutan]

So much for making trades easier. Best of luck to you!

[cameni]

Time to pack up the office and move to the states Cameni. Then distribute straight through the Steam platform. It is the only way.

In this case moving to states alone would not help. Small businesses in USA are supposed to identify the customer and register for VAT for EU. Insane, I know. EU simply ignored the existence of small businesses altogether.
Small USA companies will likely ignore it, or many will simply stop selling to EU. However, even that is not simple, legally you'd still have to identify the customer first by two independent proofs, and keep the records for 10 years. Of course, keeping the records that allow to identify the customer is covered by privacy laws and you are supposed to register as a data collector and expect audits from government agencies.

Wow. I can't even ... how ignorant and incompetent these people are.

We will probably start sending activation codes by mail, because that's no longer digital goods

[ZeosPantera]

I like your workaround. You can have a few thousand Post cards made up with screenshots from Outerra on it.

"Wish You Were Here!"

[PytonPago]

Wow. I can't even ... how ignorant and incompetent these people are.

Theyre need a vacation ....

                                    .... paid by us ....
       
                                                         .... and so, chosen by us ....
                                                                                           
                                                                                              ....   somewhere cuddly and warm i propose.



Doe, doing it per mail is really kinda bad - some places would go too long and those fees to some places. It really destroys the concept of internet for digital stuff.

[Jagerbomber]

Knowing the USPS, it won't make it to the destination 50% of the time.

[aWac9]

the reason for the económca europe are lbbies, whose purpose is to pursue Amazon, Google or apple and legislate rules regardless of which lead to ruin entrepreneurs serviico digitally delivered instantly without human intervention. This includes e-books, online courses, cloud services, videos, software, music or images, provided they are not in hardware.
the issue is to fulfill the norm while the elusive .. or sell the product through these giant companies or ventes you, but not so immediately,, since it can not be manually will do less instantaneously. ..the product delivery or service.
Groucho Marx
It is a matter of principle and if we do not like other,,