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VAT is simple unless your company has a very large, broad set of products. It's a PITA to deal with due to the invoicing and documentation requirements, but tha
by gamblor956 2y ago
VAT is simple unless your company has a very large, broad set of products. It's a PITA to deal with due to the invoicing and documentation requirements, but that's due to the volume of work required, not the complexity of it.
- kyrra 2y agoSo it's simple but hard?
- secondcoming 2y agoSimple but tedious
- surfingdino 2y agoExpensive. Dealing with all EU tax authorities is expensive and that cost can be prohibitive for smaller businesses.
- gamblor956 2y agoIt's simple but it's a lot of busywork. This can be expensive for companies with a lot of purchases as the tax authorities demand a copy of every invoice regardless of the size of the transaction. Other than the volume of paperwork involved, the actual technical aspects of VAT are far simpler than sales tax, as most countries only have a handful of VAT rates.
- milesrout 2y agoYeah unfortunately EU countries have adopted complicated VAT systems in the sense that they have different rates on different categories of goods and services. New Zealand has a much more sensible system: other than a few categories of services that are zero-rated (like land) for GST (what NZ calls VAT) everything is charged at a flat rate of 15%. It eliminates all the bullshit like decade long court proceedings about whether something is a cake or a biscuit, or silly social media campaigns about whether tampons are "luxury goods". It is all taxed at 15%. That being said, the system is not more complex in the EU really, just more annoying.