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How do you handle sales tax when selling digital goods outside of Europe (US, etc.)

Hi all,

I have a question to all of you who sell digital goods (outside the European VAT MOSS scheme) to countries such as US, Canada, Russia, Norway, India, Australia etc.

In some of those countries, you can not sell at all without registering in their jurisdiction:

  • Belarus (B2C)
  • Colombia (B2C+B2B)
  • India (B2C+B2B)
  • Russia (B2C)
  • Serbia (B2C)

In other countries there is a threshold. If you exceed certain sales, you need to charge sales tax and register or do some reporting in those countries:

  • Australia = above 75000AUD (ca. 47.500€) in global sales to B2C in a 12 month period

  • Canada = above 30000CAD (ca. 20.000€) in global sales in the last four consecutive quarters

  • New Zealand = above 60000NZD (ca 35.000€) towards B2C in New Zealand

  • Norway = 50000 Norwegian Krone(ca 5.000€) towards B2C in Norway

  • United States = if you have a physical presence (or also economic nexus) you need to comply with the sales tax requirements of that state:

  • Georgia = Threshold (Starting January 1, 2019): $250,00/year in gross revenue, or makes sales into Georgia in more than 200 separate transactions in the previous or current calendar year

  • Washington = $10,000 or more in sales

  • Oklahoma = $10,000

  • New Jersey = $100,000 or more than 200 transactions in the state in the current or last calendar year

  • etc.

Do you simply not sell to certain countries (like Russia) and in others, once you’ve reached the threshold, you just stop selling there?
How are you dealing with this and does anyone know any services that can help or deal with this?

Thx a lot!

  1. 1

    I'm using Paddle for https://www.checkbot.io/. They act as a reseller and deal with country specific tax and VAT obligations for you. Fastspring and Gumroad do this as well.

    They all take more than using Stripe directly but they'll likely save you time and headaches.

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    This comment was deleted 7 years ago

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      Use a service such as https://paddle.com/ which wil handle all the tax / invoicing elements for you, albeit for a hefty fee.

      Why do you say hefty? By dealing with country specific tax for you, they're freeing up your time and letting you sell to almost anywhere in the world. Is there a cheaper alternative that takes less time to implement?

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        This comment was deleted 7 years ago

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          Roughly how much time and paperwork is required to sell to as many countries as Paddle and similar services allow you to?

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            This comment was deleted 7 years ago

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              I think we're not agree that it takes a significant amount of time and stress to file regular paperwork, keep on top of tax changes and do the coding to accept payments for a large number of countries. Paddle and other services charge more, but they provide some value at least by shielding you from all this.

              There's lots of case studies online for how much hassle EU VAT alone was for small companies to support so dealing with more than just the EU would be even worse:
              https://scotthelme.co.uk/overcoming-the-hurdles-of-vat-and-vat-moss-in-the-eu/

              I think until you're on track to be making $100K, most independent developers would benefit using their time and energy on marketing and developing core features.

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                This comment was deleted 7 years ago