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Comment by epolanski | Hacker News Reader

There's nothing complex in vat and in general it's paid only once, when it reaches the latest customer. Most B2Bs don't pay vat obviously.

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You never had to handle cross country VAT it seems, and the stupid regulations that changed to make it require vat collection on the country of the payee :)

They are sensible regulations, but single market consisting of multiple countries with own fiscal and taxation policies is always somewhat complex thing.

Still, my understanding is that if you know the country and classify product like you know the rate. So it is less complex than sales taxes which might be local in other places.

Not anymore. For few years there has been EU VAT one stop shop system where you pay to your local tax office. And with digital products it's even easier with "VAT Mini One Stop Shop" (MOSS).

So for EU to EU company it's actually very simple.

But in mean time many other countries made some version of "digital tax". So you want to have this handled by someone anyway.

> You never had to handle cross country VAT it seems

PL5472244433

This is my European vat number, you can check it on VIES.

Vat is reverse charged from years, nobody pays it in B2B.

Isn't this the entire idea of the VAT?

B2B sales have VAT applied, but before sending the VAT money it collected, the company deducts the VAT it was charged when it bought the goods. (each company ends up sending tax money that covers how much value it added)

(it's a bit more complicated when it's cross country since it involves refund rather than deducting, but that should be the same idea)

It isn't paid once, otherwise you would not need credits.

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