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No, they can be slippery as all hell. Ask a question by e-mail, expect a definitive yes/no answer, instead receive a phone call that's instantly claimed to be "
by _wmd 9y ago
No, they can be slippery as all hell. Ask a question by e-mail, expect a definitive yes/no answer, instead receive a phone call that's instantly claimed to be "off the record", and receive a parable about a nameless other customer who had this one situation this one time.
Chances are the accountancy firm had never set up a charity before and has misunderstood the constraints, and chances are also high that they won't be liable for the problem caused without some long drawn out struggle.
- wila 9y agoTrue, but it is worse than that. If you call the tax office and ask them direct questions about doing business abroad then even they still give you an answer with a disclaimer that it might not be correct.
- greenshackle2 9y agoMy flatmate is an international sales tax expert. I helped her debug hairy tax problems a couple times - not that I have any expert knowledge of tax laws, I was mostly rubber-ducking her - it sounds like an absolute clusterfuck. Like other domains of law it's not always clear cut, it wasn't like, yeah Alice Inc. owes exactly X% taxes because of law A, it was like, we can argue that Alice Inc. owes X% based on laws A and B, C, but the tax authority could argue they owe Y% based on an argument that actually, laws B, D, and E apply to their case, which we would counter-argue with, etc., etc., etc. So I'm not surprised the tax office wouldn't give straight answers; even they may not know how a court would rule depending on the specifics of the case.