VAT and America/Europe

harikaram · Jul 20, 2007

Hi,
Funny, there was no mention of the word VAT in this entire forum according to the search...

I'm launching an ecommerce site and I plan to sell to the US and mainland Europe as well as the UK. Does anyone know how VAT works when selling to these places? Must I still charge and pay it?

Thanks ahead of time for any help.

Harikaram Singh

Write My Site · Jul 20, 2007

As far as I know, VAT is only chargeable to UK companies.

KM-Tiger · Jul 20, 2007

Try searching on "VAT export", you'll get a lot of hits, eg like this:-

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/search.php?searchid=360509

Rhyl Lightworks · Jul 20, 2007

When I phoned up VAT enquiries about this, they told me VAT is chargeable to any country within the EU, but not to any outside it.
Barrie

harikaram · Jul 20, 2007

Great thanks for the help. Now on to the shopping cart software...

JamieM · Jul 20, 2007

Rhyl Lightworks said:
When I phoned up VAT enquiries about this, they told me VAT is chargeable to any country within the EU, but not to any outside it.
Barrie

That is correct. But be careful as it is only chargeable to EC(EU) member states. There is also a distance selling threshold for supplies to the EC. Check this out too.

You need to provide evidence of a postal export for orders outside the EC. In addition, any EC companies making a purchase may be able to submit their VAT number to you requiring you to zero rate the invoice.

Finally, I would strongly advise you speak to your/an accountant about this as it can be easy to make mistakes.

That all said, you say it is a new venture, will you be VAT registered from the outset?

harikaram · Jul 21, 2007

Yeah my business partner has a the company structure set up from another venture so we're registered. She's a chartered accountant but not really used to dealing with these issues I don't think. Thanks for the info. I might need to pick your brain more on this later if you wouldnt mind :>

The issue now is choosing the best shopping cart solution, but this is off topic so perhaps I'll look in the ecommerce forum...

Thanks again for the continued help...

Search

Search

VAT and America/Europe

harikaram

Write My Site

KM-Tiger

Rhyl Lightworks

harikaram

JamieM

harikaram

Similar threads

Latest Articles