This is not a cash sale in a local book store.
previously when I had a new idea that I might be able to turn into a business I could form a limited liability company for about £10, try the idea out with essentially no paperwork at all
then if the idea panned out I could worry about the huge-pain-in-the-ass-that-is-VAT later
now with this regulation it's a problem once I've made my first sale to a non-domestic EU customer, and my agility goes through the floor
EU countries have gone from being fantastic places to start a digital services micro-company to being at best mediocre ones, all to try to stop Amazon avoiding VAT
utter madness: small companies started as side projects turn into the big ones, but apparently we no longer want that
Well, so how do we deal with Amazon avoiding VAT and still being fair to all players on the market, big and small?
the significant problem is now the fact that I have to register for VAT domestically if I want to to sell to people in other EU countries
before if my turnover was below ~£70,000 I paid no VAT at all due to the exemption (giving me a competitive edge vs. big companies with better economies of scale)
after the new regulations if I make any EU sales I have to either fill in VAT returns for EU member state I've sold to (not feasible, that would be hundreds of VAT returns/year in many languages), or register for domestic VAT which will handle that for me, but kills my business model
the EU Commission doesn't see this as a significant problem, likely as it is a beneficiary of VAT (the VAT being an EU mandated tax)
having less turnover or income than the value at which you move above the zero rate band is not evasion
low income people aren't evading taxes by not earning enough to be liable to pay them