New EU VAT regulation for 2015 and eJunkie

[sgt_bilko]

PrintNPracticeThank you E-JunkieGuru, Sgt, and Will, et al for following this so well.



I'm based in the US and am not handy with much on the internet. Will this affect my accounts?

I gather they expect you to register for VAT in at least one EU country and then go through a similar rigmarole to the rest of us but I'm not entirely clear on the procedure. My guess is that 95% of US based sellers will be completely unaware of this. Indeed the numbers may not be far less in the UK but we have managed to mobilise a campaign that hasn't yet gained traction across the rest of the EU. This needs more oxygen and publicity to gain momentum in other countries as well so we can stop this.



Not long ago I purchased a second hand vintage Swiss watch from a US seller that was produced before VAT even existed and originally shipped between two countries outside the EU. When it made it's way over to me I was charged 20% VAT + a handling fee at customs and it seems their default position is to tax anything that moves regardless how absurd or unjustified.

[willwood]

PrintNPracticeThank you E-JunkieGuru, Sgt, and Will, et al for following this so well.



I'm based in the US and am not handy with much on the internet. Will this affect my accounts?

This document might help clarify the situation a bit and does mention North American sellers part-way through:

http://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/knowledge/publications/118911/vat-on-digital-services-a-brave-new-world



But in practice, I cannot see how a few corrupt, neo-nazi bureaucrats in Europe would be able to force taxation changes beyond their own borders! We're at the point where we're basically talking about a complete overhaul of international trade and taxation laws. That webpage also hints that taxation of digital downloads at the customers location may also be extended to cover other goods, products and services at a later time. So perhaps that is the ultimate plan and digital sellers are currently being used as the 'lab rats' to test it out!



I also discovered an excellent resource here on Github that has been compiled to collate lots of documents and information about VAT-MOSS:

http://rachelandrew.github.io/eu-vat/



I've figured out that because tax authorities like HMRC in the UK are not getting to keep any of the tax collected through VAT-MOSS (it gets filtered onto the other EU countries), this is most likely the reason why they've failed so badly in conveying reliable information to UK sellers like myself. It's just not a priority for them in the face of a multi-trillion-pound budget deficit and a country teetering on the verge of economic collapse (the only safety net being a historically low 0.5% interest rate). Basically there's nothing in it for HMRC, so why bother? They are really only interested in the UK slice of tax they can collect for themselves. HMRC's only obligation is to oversee the basic administration and running of MOSS, so they in-turn can syphon tax in from other EU countries.



I have to question who will be chasing companies worldwide for unpaid tax. I can't see countries like Russia or China willingly paying tax back to the EU. Undoubtedly the level of non-compliance is going to be astonishly massive on 1st January 2015. It almost makes it a voluntary scheme.



The two options I currently see (in this particular order of preference and practicality) if the rules don't change again before 1st January 2015:



1) Comply with VAT-MOSS. Run with the system E-Junkie are kindly preparing for us. Pray that the VAT paperwork does not prove too much. Absorb the cost of taxation in my existing prices and hope that not many people buy my RapidWeaver themes and stacks from Hungary where the tax rate is / was 27%! Report competitors breaking the law and hope they pay-up or get shut down.



2) Shut-down the supply of digital downloads direct to my customers. Continue to advertise them for sale on my websites, but customers would need to contact me to pay for a product and later manually receive a copy that has been renamed or modified for their exclusive use.



I don't want to host my digital downloads with a reseller, because I feel I'd be loosing an equal or greater amount of revenue per-sale. Also it would restrict my ability to provide customer support or issue free updates or upgrade pricing. I don't think my customers would be happy to pay more for my products; and the amount of non-complinace on and after 1st January 2015 means that most of my customers will probably just go looking for a cheaper price elsewhere if I start charging more.



After the US, Germany is my biggest customer base for digital downloads. German customers are wonderful to deal with, extremely friendly and very loyal customers. So banning all EU countries from my website is not an option and is likely to conflict with various other laws relating to discrimination. I definitely want to keep all my EU customers.



It's a total mess.

[sgt_bilko]

@willwood I am a recent convert to Rapidweaver and I know your website. One of your competitors is based in Jersey and I don't think they even have VAT there. It certainly didn't appear on any sales invoices when I purchased some stacks and I believe he sells an awful lot of stacks.



The reason I mention this is because we have a situation here where the vast majority of small businesses are being crippled by the burden of an ever more unaccountable state bureaucracy, while others living in particular locations are able to simply run their businesses in peace. Guess who is going to make more progress? The more we burden companies with costs and bureaucracy the less able they are to earn money, invest and drive the economy.

[printnpractice]

Again, thank you Sgt and Will.

E-junkieGuruThe latter amounts to "taxation without representation", and I seem to recall we held a revolution over that matter some time ago...

I remember reading that it was the Navigation Laws that England finally tried to enforce one hundred years after the law was written in the mid 1600s. Kind of applies to navigating the internet.



I'll watch here for more answers, especially step by step directions of what to do.

[sgt_bilko]

I just had a thought actually that it might be really useful if e-junkie wrote a letter that was cc/d to a couple of high up people in the British government explaining the practical difficulties from a cart provider's perspective. Most of this has already been explained in this thread.



It should be included that small UK sellers will effectively have to pay the VAT themselves. They would therefore have less or zero taxable income and all the money would be going straight to foreign governments.



I can make sure this letter goes straight to government ministers via the Federation of Small Businesses.

[oh2g]

Sgt_BilkoI just had a thought actually that it might be really useful if e-junkie wrote a letter that was cc/d to a couple of high up people in the British government explaining the practical difficulties from a cart provider's perspective. Most of this has already been explained in this thread.



It should be included that small UK sellers will effectively have to pay the VAT themselves. They would therefore have less or zero taxable income and all the money would be going straight to foreign governments.



I can make sure this letter goes straight to government ministers via the Federation of Small Businesses.

+1



E-Junkie would be able to add weight to the campaign against these ridiculous laws.

[sgt_bilko]

Vince Cable replies and hasn't lifted a finger to defend the interests of small British businesses.



http://www.change.org/p/vince-cable-mp-uphold-the-vat-exemption-threshold-for-businesses-supplying-digital-products/responses/25596



We desperately need an option that allows us to manually authorise downloads inside the EU without any of the other steps that will kill our conversion rates, otherwise I see no option other than to hand it all over Amazon etc and give up the day job.

[sgt_bilko]

For some strange reason the site is down at this precise moment but I have discovered there are distance selling thresholds for VAT across the EU and it is not set as zero for any country. In most countries it's around €35,000 but can be as high as €100,000 and I don't see why they are singling out digital downloads. This strikes me as a useful fallback position for arguing our case.



http://www.vatlive.com/eu-vat-rules/distance-selling-eu-vat-thresholds/



EDIT: It's back online now.

[elmer77]

After these many posts and disciussion,I would like to ask to Tyson (E-Junkie Guru) if he could summarize what are the changes and features planned to be done to comply to thie new EU-VAT legislation, and to give us anticipated date(s) of availability for these different features (I understand that these new features would probably only be available when using the new admin interface which is just fine to me)



This is an important information for many of us, as we have to organize promptly by our side the new process and rules we have to setup in both our e-store/selling pages and on the accounting, and fiscal side.





Also to answer the question from Tyson about the need to display the vat value: from what I know, this is not important that in the cart itself the vat appears, the only important thing is that the customer see the actual real total he will pay (in fact customers know that dispalyed prices are always "incl. VAT" amounts). The only requirement in the end is that if a customers requires an invoice, then the vat value appears on it. Note that an invoice is not tha same thing as a receipt (this one simply states that a amount was paid). Not all customers ask for an invoice, especially for small amounts. The best thing to do (from my point of you) is when completing the transaction with Paypal is to transmit to it the calculated VAT value: this should appear then on Paypal transation page which is sufficient.

[sgt_bilko]

HMRC have just released guidance that we can use to decide on a future strategy and I think I've found a very simple workaround that should be easy for e-junkie to implement and not too stressful for sellers or buyers.



https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/revenue-and-customs-brief-46-2014-vat-rule-change-and-the-vat-mini-one-stop-shop-additional-guidance/revenue-and-customs-brief-46-2014-vat-rule-change-and-the-vat-mini-one-stop-shop-additional-guidance



In section 2 it defines what an e-service is and if an item is supplied automatically it's an e-service but if they buyer is sent an email manually it falls outside the definition.



Following this logic why can't e-junkie just tweak their system so that the download link is sent to the seller but not the buyer. It's then up to the seller to forward the email and add a couple words of thanks. Job done and no hassles with VAT.



I already have it set up so that e-junkie sends out an email to the customer and myself with a download link rather than going straight to the download page so this is already well within the capabilities of the system.

[sgt_bilko]

An update here from the lady who started the petition against EU VAT expressing disappointment with the lack of progress from HMRC and pointing out that it's basically impossible for us to comply with the requirements for the proof of place supply.



https://www.change.org/p/vince-cable-mp-uphold-the-vat-exemption-threshold-for-businesses-supplying-digital-products/u/8992991

[E-junkie_Guru]

That page lists "Pdf document automatically downloaded from site" as an example of an electronically-provided e-service subject to the VAT rule change; this would appear to cover providing buyers with any download link generated by our system, since clicking that link would lead to an automatically-generated page where they would click another link start an automated download. To avoid issuing a download link to the buyer at all, you could simply disable Single File Download in the product's settings, and then manually email each buyer your file as an attachment.



If you're selling an ebook PDF and wish to use our PDF Stamping feature to deter file sharing, you can still obtain the Stamped PDF yourself and avoid providing a link to the buyer. In this case, you would enable Single File Download, upload the file, and set up PDF Stamping as usual; however, you would also Enable Templated Email to suppress our standard message and link presentation, and enter an Email Message explaining that you will email the file personally. In Seller Admin > Account Preferences, enter a Common Thank-you Page URL for a page on your site; all buyers will be redirected to this page after checkout, rather than to our standard thank-you/download page. Also in your Account Preferences, remove the [%thankyou_link%] template tag from your Common Thank-you Email template, or just delete that template entirely to disable the message.



Then, whenever we process an order, you would open your E-junkie Transaction Log and click the Item Name for each ebook purchased in that transaction; this will bring up our thank-you/download page for that item, where you can download the Stamped PDF file yourself, and then email that to the buyer manually as an attachment. If you're convinced that manually emailing a link (rather than a file attachment) would still qualify as a non-automated supply, you could simply right-click the Item Name for each ebook purchased, copy the link, and paste that into an email to the buyer.

[sgt_bilko]

Physically emailing the book is not really an option for me because the PDF would be too big for many customers, owing to lots of images but I think there is definitely scope with the rest of the process for this to qualify as a manual process.



Perhaps e-junkie could even send out an automated link to the buyer telling them that they will receive an email later from the seller with a link that first needs to be manually authorised. We could then take the automated download link we receive and use it to craft an email by hand to the buyer. In this instance we are sending a link because the book is physically too large to email.



The section that needs to be read carefully is here:



"What is meant by electronically supplied?



This covers e-services which are automatically delivered over the internet, or an electronic network, where there is minimal or no human intervention. In practice, this means:



Where the sale of the digital content is entirely automatic - for eg a customer clicks the ‘buy now’ button on a website and the:



*content downloads onto their device



*customer receives an automated e-mail containing the content



Where the sale of the digital content is essentially automatic, and the small amount of manual process involved does not change the nature of the supply from an e-service. Examples of sales that are essentially automatic are where a customer clicks a “buy now” button on the website and the seller receives a notification and clicks a button, which:



*automatically sends an e-mail containing the digital content to the customer



*produces an e-mail pre-populated with the customer’s details followed by the seller attaching the digital content and clicking ‘send’



All e-services that are electronically supplied in the ways outlined above are categorised as ‘digital services’ and are covered by the rule change."



Can we see room to make this work so that it is as simple as possible yet stays within the rules? I would argue that I just about manage this already because the customer receives a link rather than an automated download. It's not a case of buy now and download immediately afterwards as described by HMRC.



I think we can make this work with a bit of ingenuity and it would be better for all concerned.

[E-junkie_Guru]

Sgt_BilkoPerhaps e-junkie could even send out an automated link to the buyer telling them that they will receive an email later from the seller with a link that first needs to be manually authorised. We could then take the automated download link we receive and use it to craft an email by hand to the buyer. In this instance we are sending a link because the book is physically too large to email.

My previous reply explains how to bypass redirecting buyers to a download page after checkout, how to suppress automatically sending buyers a link to that page and instead send them a custom message advising them to await a file or link to be provided manually later, and how you can obtain that file or link.



I will also ask Development to consider adding a thank-you/download page link to the standard Sale Notification email we send sellers for each order, so sellers could simply copy and paste that link into a personal email to the buyer.

Can we see room to make this work so that it is as simple as possible yet stays within the rules? I would argue that I just about manage this already because the customer receives a link rather than an automated download. It's not a case of buy now and download immediately afterwards as described by HMRC.



I think we can make this work with a bit of ingenuity and it would be better for all concerned.

It's not technically possible to make any user's computer spontaneously download a file without any interaction from them -- indeed, if any such method were found, it would be deemed a bug and a potential security risk, as it would certainly be exploited by hackers, malware distributors, and other such crooks -- so that can't possibly be what HMRC means by automated supply. At least some nominal user interaction, such as clicking a link or button, must be required for the user to specifically request and initiate a download, so that nominal interaction cannot be taken to mean the download is not automated.



In typical operation, following checkout buyers can normally access a thank-you page we automatically generate with their download link(s), and we email them a link to reach that page as well. IMO, this is certainly an automated supply as HMRC describes; arguably, manually emailing the buyer a link to access that download page might count as automated supply as well. Note in particular their example, "Link to online content or download sent by manual e-mail", is explicitly noted as an electronically-supplied e-service; by that example, manually emailing your buyers a link to their E-junkie thank-you/download page would not appear to exempt you from the rule change.



We aren't tax attorneys or accountants, so take with a grain of salt any regulatory interpretations we may offer, but it seems like you may be splitting hairs trying to find a loophole in the letter of the law to avoid complying with the intended spirit of the law. As such, you might consider whether you're willing to incur the potential legal expense and hassle of defending your case, not to mention penalties if you lose, if HMRC ultimately disagrees with your interpretation.



The page you linked from HMRC, including the section you quoted within its broader context, seems to be making the case that the mere act of providing a file to a paying client via the Internet does does not inherently subject that business relationship to the new VAT rule on electronically-supplied e-services -- e.g., if you're a paid consultant and happen to provide files to clientele in the course of your consultation, or if you're a designer or programmer and provide files your clientele have paid you to create for them, those transactions are not subject to the rule change.



However, if you're providing files as pre-prepared retail commodity products at a large enough scale that would make delivering each file individually by personal email impractical, then any form of automation you may adopt to make providing those files easier would put you further away from the "manually supplied" case and more towards the "electronically supplied" case that's subject to the rule change.

[amy21]

I've been following this as it pertains to digital downloads on Ravelry, Etsy, etc, and according to emails from HMRC sent to members of those communities that I've seen, it appears that platform sellers--which I believe e-junkie would be--are responsible for collecting VAT, not the individual sellers who pay you for services, because you handle the cart and payment processing. Sellers who do it all through their own website are responsible for collecting VAT. Can you please speak to this part of the regulation and how you see it interpreted? Some platforms disagree with this interpretation, obviously, because it places the burden on them.

[arpeggio]

amy21I've been following this as it pertains to digital downloads on Ravelry, Etsy, etc, and according to emails from HMRC sent to members of those communities that I've seen, it appears that platform sellers--which I believe e-junkie would be--are responsible for collecting VAT, not the individual sellers who pay you for services, because you handle the cart and payment processing.

I think you may be right. Here's my interpretation of the official EU documentation.



http://ec.europa.eu/taxation customs/resources/documents/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/telecom/explanatory_notes_2015_en.pdf



Page 13/92

EU"A portal is any type of electronic shop, website or similar environment that offers electronic services directly to the consumer without diverting them to another supplier’s website, portal etc to conclude the transaction. Common examples of this include app stores, electronic marketplaces and websites offering e-services for sale."

Regarding "without diverting them to another supplier’s website": When clicking “ad to cart” or “buy” on our sites it takes you to an eJunkie URL.



P88 Article 9a

EU“Where electronically supplied services are supplied through a telecommunications network, an interface or a portal such as a marketplace for applications, a taxable person taking part in that supply shall (not) be presumed to be acting in his own name but on behalf of the provider of those services unless that provider is explicitly indicated as the supplier by that taxable person and that is reflected in the contractual arrangements between the parties.”

I added the word “not” in brackets because in the original document it wasn’t there and didn’t make sense so I assumed the word should be there.

EUIn order to regard the provider of electronically supplied services as being explicitly indicated as the supplier of those services by the taxable person, the following conditions shall be met:



(a) the invoice issued or made available by each taxable person taking part in the supply of the electronically supplied services must identify such services and the supplier thereof;



(b) the bill or receipt issued or made available to the customer must identify the electronically supplied services and the supplier thereof.

This part below however, would seem to mean that services such as E-junkie would not be able to have such a contract as above.

EUFor the purposes of this paragraph, a taxable person who, with regard to a supply of electronically supplied services, authorises the charge to the customer or the delivery of the services, or sets the general terms and conditions of the supply, shall not be permitted to explicitly indicate another person as the supplier of those services.”

UK HMRC online documentation would also imply companies like e-Junkie would be responsible.



https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-supplying-digital-services-and-the-vat-mini-one-stop-shop/vat-supplying-digital-services-and-the-vat-mini-one-stop-shop

HMRC1.2 Determining who is making the supply



If you supply digital services to consumers through an online portal, gateway or marketplace then it’s important to determine whether you’re making the supply to the customer or to the platform operator. Where the platform operator sets the general terms and conditions, authorises payment or delivery, or doesn’t clearly state the name of the supplier on the receipt or invoice issued to the consumer, then they’ll be seen as making the B2C supply even if they’re contractually only an agent.

The relevant part being “Where the platform operator authorises payment or delivery then they’ll be seen as making the B2C supply even if they’re contractually only an agent.”

[E-junkie_Guru]

The case of third-party marketplace platforms appears to cover services such as the Apple iTunes Store, Google Play app store, Bandcamp, Etsy, etc. In those cases, the marketplace platform itself is the vendor subject to collecting and remitting VAT, as they are the ones offering the product to buyers for purchase, taking payment from buyers for the product, and supplying the product to paying buyers. Here, the product creator's only involvement is essentially as a "wholesale supplier" providing goods for that platform to market and sell on their behalf, and in return they receive a portion of purchase funds the marketplace platform has collected (less taxes and the platform's fees) from buyers of their product.



E-junkie does not seem to qualify as such a third-party marketplace platform, because we do not offer the product for purchase directly from ourselves -- buyers typically place their order from the seller's site, and in any case we do clearly state the seller's Display Name/Email as the supplier that buyers are purchasing from -- nor do we handle any actual payment funds for the product; we only provide a service to help sellers take orders for the product directly from their buyers and to automate delivery of digital products to those buyers. As a purely practical matter, because we never handle any actual payment funds from buyers at any point, we cannot possibly withhold any of those funds as VAT, let alone remit any such withheld VAT funds to the relevant agencies.



Payment Processors such as PayPal do not seem to qualify, as they do not market or offer the product for purchase directly from themselves, nor do they distribute the product to buyers; they only operate as a "middleman" for payment, where the buyer pays them, and then they pay the merchant.



Payment Gateways such as 2Checkout or Authorize.Net also do not seem to qualify, as they do not market, offer, sell, nor distribute the product; their only role is to authorize a charge on the buyer's card, which is credited directly to the seller's merchant account balance.

[E-junkie_Guru]

Here's the plan we've got in mind so far:



As of Jan. 1, 2015, whenever we would process an order after checkout for sellers who enable VAT in their Seller Admin > Sales Tax & VAT Settings, we would calculate VAT due for any items which have Sales Tax/VAT enabled. Those items' price settings would be treated as gross including VAT, so our calculation would determine what portion of these gross prices constitute VAT. Any wholly-digital items -- i.e., those using Single File Download, Redirection, Send Stored/Generated Codes, or "Package files from other products...", which do NOT also have Shipping/Buyer's Address enabled -- would calculate VAT at the applicable rate for the buyer's place of supply, rather than the seller's country.



To determine place of supply, we would perform a GeoIP lookup on the buyer's IP and also require a Shipping address at checkout for orders subject to VAT, even if they do not otherwise have Shipping calculation enabled (please DO NOT manually enable Shipping for VAT purposes alone!). When we process the order after checkout, we would log the buyer's GeoIP country, Billing address (or PayPal account's Residence country), and Shipping address, and we would look for a country match between any 2 of those locations in order to determine the buyer's place of supply for VAT purposes. In the rare case where none of those items match, we would still process the order but also email a Suspected Tax/Shipping Fraud notification to the seller, to bring that to their attention and let them decide how to resolve the situation.



Since conclusive place of supply data only becomes available to us after checkout, we cannot add VAT to item prices in the cart before checkout, so accurate VAT calculation can only occur against gross item prices when we process the order after checkout has completed. This means we cannot transmit calculated VAT rates/amounts to PayPal, as all communication between their system and ours ends once they send us IPN confirming a completed checkout payment, and that's when we process the order and would calculate VAT.



Sellers would be able to use their E-junkie Transaction Log to determine whether and how much VAT to pay to relevant EU jurisdictions. Sellers can also choose to simply ignore any VAT amount we may calculate if they determine they are not subject to pay that VAT amount for whatever reason (e.g. min. revenue thresholds, etc.). We maintain Transaction Logs in perpetuity, and sellers can always access their logs if/as needed (e.g. for VAT documentation), even after they may cancel their E-junkie subscription. Sellers would also optionally be able to insert VAT rates and amounts in thank-you pages/emails via new template tags (e.g., to format E-junkie-generated thank-you pages as an invoice or bill of sale).

[jean]

E-junkieGuruHere's the plan we've got in mind so far: l

That is great to anyone wishing to take on the burden of dealing with the VAT- I definitely do not.



Are you considering enabling country-specific instant emailing of files versus the seller manually emailing them?



This would allow sellers to comply with the rules but lose less buyers due to all files being manual and not penalise all customers by making them all wait when only some need to whilst reducing the time and work burden produced by emailing all customers.



I have spoken to one other company such as yourself who are bringing this in and although it won't be in time for the 1st January they expect to have it in place before the end of the 1st quarter of 2015 and sadly if they do bring it in and you don't I'll have to switch to them

[willwood]

Sgt_Bilko @willwood I am a recent convert to Rapidweaver and I know your website. One of your competitors is based in Jersey and I don't think they even have VAT there. It certainly didn't appear on any sales invoices when I purchased some stacks and I believe he sells an awful lot of stacks.



The reason I mention this is because we have a situation here where the vast majority of small businesses are being crippled by the burden of an ever more unaccountable state bureaucracy, while others living in particular locations are able to simply run their businesses in peace. Guess who is going to make more progress? The more we burden companies with costs and bureaucracy the less able they are to earn money, invest and drive the economy.

This is something that concerns me too. Surprisingly, it seems most of my competitors have heard of the new law; but have hinted they will not comply and will "pretend" they did not know anything of it; if questioned or tax demands are made. Most seem to have got the idea (for now at least) that this law does not apply to them. Especially if they are trading offshore or from other countries worldwide. So if I have to absorb tax costs after 1st January, I'll certainly put some clear messages up on my websites telling buyers that I am complying with the laws and purchases from me are legal!



From what I've read, both sellers and buyers are equally liable for paying the correct amount of VAT on digital downloads. And as you'd expect, there are penalties for non-compliance. But I don't know who will enforce it or whether we'll see SOPA-style shutdowns of non compliant websites...



I've spoken with some customers. Waiting for their digital downloads to be sent to them manually is simply not an option for most of them. Also some email providers like Apple iCloud have terrible support for receiving file attachments in .zip or .dmg format (most get bounced back) meaning download links are the only viable option for most. However those customers I surveyed would be happy to pay slightly more for some products, in reflection of myself needing to absorb VAT for some purchases.



Over the last week I've done a lot of number-crunching. I've carefully analysed my E-Junkie sales logs and done a various calculations in spreadsheets. I've come to the conclusion that absorbing VAT costs will mean that on average I'll be handing-over 13% for each sale. I've arrived at this figure by taking 12 months of sales, and calculating the tax payable for each individual transaction.



About half of my sales are from the United States, Canada and Australia. The other half are European sales, to which I've applied the correct rate of tax. So I was able to calculate (to some degree of accuracy) how much VAT I would owe and what profit I'd have left over.



To be honest, 13% is less than I was expecting to hand-over. I was expecting it to be closer towards 20%. But my total VAT bill would still be into 4-figures each year. Undoubtedly they're big numbers to swallow and this is why so many are threatening to shutdown...



I think the system E-Junkie proposes would work well. I certainly hope this is something that can be switched on this week. It appears I will need to comply and all customers will need to see the same price, regardless of where they are buying from. 13% is the figure I'll have to absorb and some prices will have to rise as a result to improve my profit margins.



The thing that will be important to get right is that purchasing customers will need an invoice or receipt with the following on for each purchase:

- My name, address, VAT number

- Customer's name and address

- A clear breakdown of gross and net costs

- Transaction details (like the date, ID, IP number)



I don't know whether this is something that can be setup as a custom template sent to the customer or provided as a separate email? 2Checkout claim to send this out already when I asked them, but a copy I saw from a customer was missing much of this.