bit of a rant about devs, and international sales....

[vurt]

how else are devs supposed to buy yachts?

well you start by contacting a yacht broker...or me, I have a lovely boat to sell...hasn't been in the water since the 60's, 2 little holes in the side, good for at least 7 passengers, all their belongings and then some...we could patch up the holes and take a little tour on it, maybe 3 hours?

we could go for a..
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nice...

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smoke, on the water!

[Hink]

with Ian Gilligan?

[vurt]

das boot!

[chaosWyrM]

what do you do with the vat you collect from non eu customers?

It goes to the authorities that we (rather: our resellers) collect it for.

but they didnt collect it for anyone...it shouldn't have been collected at all.

which authorities are collecting vat from us customers? ive purchased some of your plugins...where did my vat money go? no one was asking for it, no one wanted it...so who did it get sent to, and how was that determined?

[Lind0n]

i see you get what im saying now, so no need to respond to your first comment....as to your question in this one...i would imagine that whatever payment service you use should be taking care of that for you. as i mentioned...most places do this automatically and there isnt an issue, so its obviously possible.

as far as im concerned...charging vat to people who arent subject to it is tantamount to stealing.

Ok well I spent more than 15 years working in the telecommunications industry, 10 of that dealing with the way TCP/IP works so I think I'm on firmer ground on this one...its not possible to assure your physical location. When you purchase a product on line there is nothing in the packets of data you are exchanging that absolutely defines where you are geographically. As I said they can ask you - and you can be truthful - but again there is nothing to guarantee anything being said, or they can guess using a combination of things like IP address ranges and (if its available) packet routing data but actually its easy enough to spoof so again - no go there.

Which is most likely why these payment services are charging you VAT no matter what - because there's an outside chance that if they don't charge you then the VAT collection agencies will ask them for their conclusive proof - in a case by case basis - that they used to decide you were not supposed to be charged VAT. If the cant provide that evidence - and as I say having spent the better part of my working like on this stuff I know that they cant - then said agency is likely to fine them - on a case by case basis. So for them it would get ugly - very very quickly.

As others have said here there are mechanisms for you to claim back your incorrectly charged VAT - and these involve you proving where you reside to the government tax collection agencies who now have your money - not the dev and not their payment service. Yes its not efficient, yes its not fair, yes its a PITA. But that's the way it works and asking the dev to fix it for you is not I think a practical use of your time.

On a side note: you say this is a new very small dev? Almost all tax collection agencies have a rule that says VAT need not be changed (to anyone no matter where they live) if the dev's revenue is less than a fixed amount in a 12 month period - £85,000 in the UK for instance, so I'm very surprised in this case that the dev is charging you - unless they got very successful very quickly...

[vurt]

what do you do with the vat you collect from non eu customers?

It goes to the authorities that we (rather: our resellers) collect it for.

but they didnt collect it for anyone...it shouldn't have been collected at all.

which authorities are collecting vat from us customers? ive purchased some of your plugins...where did my vat money go? no one was asking for it, no one wanted it...so who did it get sent to, and how was that determined?

it gets sent to the tax collection authorities. if unclaimed it then gets sent to the eu, it is then spent on healthcare, infrastructure and the like, same as any taxation over here.
(obviously there are many things tax gets spent on, but i personally would like to thank you all for my free prescription )

all prices you see usually include vat, otherwise there would be two prices on a site.
they charge it as a matter of course, because as mentioned above, vpn makes it impossible to know where a customer is from.
so everyone gets charged
you being a us citizen then get in touch with the eu tax revenue folks, and at some distant point when they can be arsed, you will get a refund (seriously, they are slow as f**k when they owe you! bloody different when the shoe is on the other foot!)

[chaosWyrM]

what do you do with the vat you collect from non eu customers?

It goes to the authorities that we (rather: our resellers) collect it for.

but they didnt collect it for anyone...it shouldn't have been collected at all.

which authorities are collecting vat from us customers? ive purchased some of your plugins...where did my vat money go? no one was asking for it, no one wanted it...so who did it get sent to, and how was that determined?

it gets sent to the tax collection authorities. if unclaimed it then gets sent to the eu, it is then spent on healthcare, infrastructure and the like, same as any taxation over here.
(obviously there are many things tax gets spent on, but i personally would like to thank you all for my free prescription )

all prices you see usually include vat, otherwise there would be two prices on a site.
they charge it as a matter of course, because as mentioned above, vpn makes it impossible to know where a customer is from.
so everyone gets charged
you being a us citizen then get in touch with the eu tax revenue folks, and at some distant point when they can be arsed, you will get a refund (seriously, they are slow as f**k when they owe you! bloody different when the shoe is on the other foot!)

that right there is a steaming pile of bs. what kind of backwards nonsense is that? i dont buy something from florida, pay florida sales tax on it and then have to go prove im from new york and try to get reimbursed from florida....all so i can then turn around and pay new york sales tax. ffs, thats lunacy.

vpns??? has no one in europe heard of billing/shipping addresses? you know...the ones that are part of the banking information you use when you pay for things online? people dont normally use a vpn when opening a bank account or getting a credit card....both of which require a real physical address (no po boxes or the like) AND a ss# or us taxpayer id #.

so...."we cant tell where youre from" a pretty lame excuse. we have 50 states and some territories here, each with their own (multiple) set(s) of tax laws....we manage to figure out how much taxes to charge people from other states without any trouble. this is something we literally never even think about here...its all taken care of behind the scenes.

i could understand if i was connecting to an eu site from the usa...but trying to pay with a cc from france or some shit...then maybe one might wonder about vpns...but if im connecting from the us...and have us bank information...whats the problem?


this is all moot anyway.

bottom line is that there are eu sites that have figured out how to remove vat for non eu customers. if one can...they all can.

:edit:

i didnt do anything to make "moot" a link...i dont even see a way to make it NOT a link.

[D.H. Miltz]

:edit:

i didnt do anything to make "moot" a link...i dont even see a way to make it NOT a link.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=559637

[revvy]

Vital discussion. Massive problem. Reality being described here seems very unjust. Dagger in the heart of open trade IMO.

Corona is probably making it worse, though.

[Googly Smythe]

Vital discussion. Massive problem. Reality being described here seems very unjust. Dagger in the heart of open trade IMO.

Corona is probably making it worse, though.

I saw what you did, there!

[briefcasemanx]

Wait, so if my U-He plugins have vat added to the final price, can I petition the EU to get that vat money back? How do I figure out how much of the final price was vat, and how do I petition?

[Lind0n]

Wait, so if my U-He plugins have vat added to the final price, can I petition the EU to get that vat money back? How do I figure out how much of the final price was vat, and how do I petition?

Yes you can.

You find out what the VAT rate was on digital goods at the time of your purchase in Germany - given U-He's address is:

Heckmann Audio GmbH
Wilmersdorfer Str. 98/99
10629 Berlin
Germany

calculate your VAT amount.

Make a claim - providing evidence of your physical location to the German TAX collecting authority.

There are services that will help you do this:

http://www.itrservice.co.uk/Germany_VAT ... FsQAvD_BwE

[vurt]

what do you do with the vat you collect from non eu customers?

It goes to the authorities that we (rather: our resellers) collect it for.

but they didnt collect it for anyone...it shouldn't have been collected at all.

which authorities are collecting vat from us customers? ive purchased some of your plugins...where did my vat money go? no one was asking for it, no one wanted it...so who did it get sent to, and how was that determined?

it gets sent to the tax collection authorities. if unclaimed it then gets sent to the eu, it is then spent on healthcare, infrastructure and the like, same as any taxation over here.
(obviously there are many things tax gets spent on, but i personally would like to thank you all for my free prescription )

all prices you see usually include vat, otherwise there would be two prices on a site.
they charge it as a matter of course, because as mentioned above, vpn makes it impossible to know where a customer is from.
so everyone gets charged
you being a us citizen then get in touch with the eu tax revenue folks, and at some distant point when they can be arsed, you will get a refund (seriously, they are slow as f**k when they owe you! bloody different when the shoe is on the other foot!)

that right there is a steaming pile of bs. what kind of backwards nonsense is that? i dont buy something from florida, pay florida sales tax on it and then have to go prove im from new york and try to get reimbursed from florida....all so i can then turn around and pay new york sales tax. ffs, thats lunacy.

vpns??? has no one in europe heard of billing/shipping addresses? you know...the ones that are part of the banking information you use when you pay for things online? people dont normally use a vpn when opening a bank account or getting a credit card....both of which require a real physical address (no po boxes or the like) AND a ss# or us taxpayer id #.

so...."we cant tell where youre from" a pretty lame excuse. we have 50 states and some territories here, each with their own (multiple) set(s) of tax laws....we manage to figure out how much taxes to charge people from other states without any trouble. this is something we literally never even think about here...its all taken care of behind the scenes.

i could understand if i was connecting to an eu site from the usa...but trying to pay with a cc from france or some shit...then maybe one might wonder about vpns...but if im connecting from the us...and have us bank information...whats the problem?


this is all moot anyway.

bottom line is that there are eu sites that have figured out how to remove vat for non eu customers. if one can...they all can.

:edit:

i didnt do anything to make "moot" a link...i dont even see a way to make it NOT a link.

that's how it is
you can continue to complain or you can follow the (i agree annoying) rules
neither me nor the dev can change it.

(the ones you buy that don't mention vat, they will still take a cut from the devs end, you still pay it)

[pekbro]

Hmm, looking at my invoices, I've never been charged the VAT from uhe, it lists VAT as $0.00 specifically.
I have been charged US Sales Tax though. Honestly, pretty sure I have never seen any evidence of having
the VAT tax collected for anything, and I buy a fair amount of stuff from the EU, mostly in relation to
modular hardware, of course they do have to ship that stuff to me. Also if I see a VAT charge, I'm not
going to buy.

[chaosWyrM]

Hmm, looking at my invoices, I've never been charged the VAT from uhe, it lists VAT as $0.00 specifically.
I have been charged US Sales Tax though. Honestly, pretty sure I have never seen any evidence of having
the VAT tax collected for anything, and I buy a fair amount of stuff from the EU, mostly in relation to
modular hardware, of course they do have to ship that stuff to me. Also if I see a VAT charge, I'm not
going to buy.

as far as i remember....the vat is just included in the price....hold on....

so...its hard to tell. when i add something to my uhe cart...the price does come in lower than expected...199 euro zebra2 shows up in my cart as $238.49...which when converted back to euros is only 191.31

is that about right for taking vat off? i dont know...could be. didnt he just say earlier in this thread that he doesnt remove it though? could the lower price just be a matter of the conversion?

as mentioned, i have purchased a few uhe plugins....regardless of the vat situation. they are obviously good plugins...but the reason i dont concern myself with the vat is because uhe has released some very fine free plugins. that has garnered enough good will for me to not care about the vat issue. most devs dont do that though, and charging people extra money for no reason is bad practice.

i typically make it a point to never buy anything from eu sellers who wont remove vat.