So if you live in Europe it’s impossible to run a paid Ghost or Substack newsletter?
If you live in Europe you have to collect and report VAT taxes. Leaving reporting issues aside, with Substack and Ghost there is no option to collect VAT since they connect to a standard Stripe checkout.
So... has anyone found a solution? Or is just no one in Europe running a paid newsletter?
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There are solutions out there that exist as a middleman to handle VAT for you. I actually posted earlier this week (albeit with a UK/product angle) over here if you're interested: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/comparing-vat-solutions-for-bootstrapped-uk-businesses-d079b6978b
The issue is actually not that complicated, Stripe merely allows you to accept the payment. You will need to sort out the invoice from your own side.
Just collect the total amount with taxes, I guess that's why Stripe offers receipts by default.
You can also create invoices separately, which does allow to add tax =)
So there is a threshold. You should only have to collect these if you process above €10,000.
Long term though I believe Checkout will (if it doesn't already) support taxes.
Depends where you sell no?
I assumed it was EU focussed so answer was based on that, however pretty much every country and/or state has a threshold these days for collecting tax from their citizens.
In the early days of a newsletter (if you're doing below 10k per country/state) I wouldn't stress about it.