Twitter Storm on “VAT MOSS” planned
for 16th December 10am
It is more
than likely that the headline of this article will mean very little to you, but
for small and micro-businesses the EU juggernaut is about to plunge them into a
new VAT nightmare from January 1st
2015.
The ruling affects
any business supplying digital services to customers in the EU. At the moment
VAT is charged in the country supplying
the service so that UK businesses simply fill in VAT returns in the UK and, of
course, only need to register for VAT if their turnover is above £81,000
From January
1st the supplier will have to document the country of purchase and pay VAT in that country. Now there are 28 EU states and a huge variation
in VAT and furthermore there is no
minimum threshold on turnover, so even the smallest kitchen table digital business
will have to register for VAT.
HMRC is
offering VAT MOSS (Mini One Stop Shop)
but businesses are being told they will have to keep records for ten years,
make quarterly returns and of course will have to put prices up or absorb the
VAT of the purchasing country!
The
Government is claiming that this has been in the pipeline for years and
everyone should know about it but SME’s (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) have
reacted with horror at the complexity of the whole “VAT MESS” and many say they
will simply stop trading.
There is a
petition on Change.org and a twitter storm is planned for 16th
December at 10am
Sally
Wainman
15th
December 2014
