Amazon is now offering an online service whereby they will be do your VAT returns for you called VAT Services on Amazon. For €400 annually per territory, they’ll do the paperwork on all your Amazon sales and make sure that you pay your dues. For €100 extra you can feed in your sales for other channels and Amazon will file those too for you. And lets’s face it, you’ll likely be needing that service. Here’s the landing page.
You can find out more here and here’s what they say: “VAT Services on Amazon allows you to spend more time on your business and less on VAT. With VAT Services on Amazon, you complete filing and submission in Seller Central for just €400 per year. Amazon partners with global tax service provider Avalara to provide this service in United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Czech Republic.”
The service is being powered by Avalara, who are EU VAT specialists. A few things leap out about this offer. The first is that the price is a fixed Euro fee so it will fluctuate (up and down). Secondly, if we assume €500 in 7 countries that’s €3500. And that’s not a weeny fee. That said with other providers you can pay hefty fees too. It’s up to you whether that’s expensive or not (the answer will depend on the size and nature of your business) and it would be interesting to know what you think about the price.
What is perhaps most salient is that Amazon is knitting itself so closely into VAT compliance when many Amazon sellers will be frustrated by overseas sellers seemingly running rings around HMRC and claiming undue advantage by not paying fair. But that is, perhaps, another story.
5 Responses
I don’t use any overseas VAt services but I have had advice from Taxamo (over digital tax liabilities) which provides a much cheaper service Worth checking out. IOn Amazon I sell mostly in the UK but last year sold £25 worth to France so €400 seems like a bargain price to pay so I can walk round with a clear conscience I am not cheating the French people. Also I seem to remember that Amazon (amongst others) once were being accused of dodging international tax . The whole tax solutions that politicians have since dreamed up for online transactions is totally skewed in favour of BIG business and against SMEs. Am considering re-opening my High Street shops in London & simply sell to overseas folk who dropped in (in vast numbers back then) Will leave them to sort out tax Grrhh!
I’m not sure I would want Amazon to have all the sales data from the other channels – would the other channels want them to have it too?
Hi Tamebay – it looks like you didn’t publish my comment about sharing data with Amazon from other channels given Amazon’s reputation for exploiting other peoples ideas and products – do you not think it relevant? I think it is a big issue.. I would be really interested in what others think about it too?
Amazon to pay tax! Wonderful news. Except it won’t be their own tax, it’ll be other folks. And would any seller seriously want Amazon to have their sales data from other channels? Surely it’s naive to think they wouldn’t use it for their own advantage.
Title misleading. Amazon will not themselves do anything with your tax, but are affiliated with Avalara, who will presumably give Amazon a kickback for the referral. From what I can gather, the only part Amazon plays in this is give Avalara access to your sales data from Seller Central, if authorised.