What happens if I buy audio plugins with my VAT ID

[mystran]

I'm not an expert on this.. so check the regulation to make sure I didn't make mistakes, but .. basically my understanding (as someone in EU who's kinda supposed to know this) is as follows:

If your (the customer's) country of residence is outside the EU economic area, then no VAT should be charged (it's "export" at VAT 0% as far as the seller is concerned) and you'd rather supposed to declare import and pay whatever relevant taxes in your country of residence.

The reason EU companies ask for VAT ID for B2B sales is simply because normally an EU company is responsible for collecting VAT on behalf of consumers, but for B2B "reverse VAT" applies (with some exceptions I think, but that shouldn't matter here) and it's the customer that pays (or deducts) the VAT themselves, but the seller then needs the VAT ID of the customer so that they can report to tax authorities "this is the company that's supposed to pay VAT for this sale" in order to convince the local tax authority that it was not a sale to a consumer. I'd imagine though that if you do have a VAT ID anyway, that might simplify reporting for the seller, because they will need to provide proof that you're outside EU (though a few non-contradictory things like IP address, billing address, credit card, etc in the same foreign country should be enough I think).

As far as companies outside the EU, well... you can voluntarily (except in case of "digital services" in which case I think it's supposedly mandatory) register for collecting VAT on behalf of consumers in EU in which case you'll get a VAT ID and then your consumers don't need to bother doing a regular import (and paying VAT separately).

[vurt]

do you not have a company accountant who can answer these kind of things?

[Kaijeaxn]

Jumping in on this older post because I’ve run into the same thing recently. One thing I’m still curious about is how different plugin shops handle VAT ID checks. Some remove VAT right away, others seem to verify manually. Has anyone noticed big differences between stores or countries?