The flipside of that is that Patreon handles the ugly details of making sure the right amount of VAT / sales tax is paid on transactions - and from a creator's

The flipside of that is that Patreon handles the ugly details of making sure the right amount of VAT / sales tax is paid on transactions - and from a creator's point of view this is a big part of their value proposition. If creators had to administer that stuff on an individual basis they'd have no time left for creating.