How viable is selling a WSO after January 1st 2015?

Envato is NOT safe. Lots of long time sellers are currently jumping ship due to Envato's inability and unwillingness to answer their concerns and provide them with an adequate way to fulfill their new requirements as digital sellers.

As I mentioned above... they have made clear their intent of working with foreign governments to enlist their help. We are talking about the entire European Union, not a single country.

If you trust your government to have your back and decide to do nothing about it, that is your decision. From this point on we're only waiting to see where the chips will fall.

Oh, and by the way, even if it takes them 10 years to get you with the help of your own government... by the time they get to you, if you haven't been compliant and keeping track of their required information during those 10 years... you're still going to have to pay.

Personally, I won't be holding my breath and pray that big brother's got my back. They will always have their own agenda, which may or may not be in my best interest in the long term.

Honestly, it's a gamble that seems to me way much more trouble than the potential hassle of adapting my business model. The less is left outside of my control and in other people's hands, the better I sleep at night.

The EU is a joke and as soon as the UK leave the better. The best option is to totally ignore any verbal diarrhea coming from those EU morons. Anyone who wants to stay in the EU obviously need their head testing.

Yes, for now, their stance is clear. They'll keep your and your money inside because it's best for them.

But a lot can change in 10 years. A lot has changed in the past 10 years. The government does a lot now that it couldn't or wouldn't do 10 years ago.

Let's say, I don't know, there is another "situation" in the middle-east.

Let's say Uncle Sam asks his buddies from the Old World for some backup.

Let's say those guys aren't too happy they got the Ascii finger for the past 10 years...

Let's say they all sit around a table to try and smooth over a few misunderstandings...

Or more close to home and realistically, since a lot of US citizens buy online from other countries... including digital good and services, which are not being taxed... What if it suddenly got into their head that the EU had something worth looking into, and they decided to move ahead with their own version of it, integrating not only 28 countries like the EU does, but 51 states? Maybe even Canada and Mexico as part of some Free Trade agreement? Do you think it would be in their interest then to work out an agreement with the EU to help a brother out?

Are you still willing to put your entire business, your finances, and your freedom, on the line, hoping that your government will always have your back?

Or would you rather be a bit creative now, roll-up your sleeve, maybe drop a few G's into adapting your business, and move on knowing that no matter what happens, your bases are covered?

I will not abide by any EU rules whatsoever, and I don't see how they can enforce them anyway even in Europe. Just scare tactics to squeeze more money from people. However, I'm sure they will make an example out of someone.

I'm going to ask my my CPA.

RoD

I am in Canada, that is correct.

Assuming I do not know law is a mistake.

Assuming you are safe from prosecution for a crime because the country you reside in does not acknowledge it as such is also a mistake and there are plenty of precedent to back it up.

There have been many instances of countries working together and collaborating to enforce laws for crimes committed in other countries. Whether or not your government will recognize such activity as a legitimate crime and agree to prosecute is one thing we can only speculate on, and that is bound to change with international pressure and foreign relations. Such examples have been made very clear over the past few years with cases linked to computer crimes, prostitution, and more a-propos tax evasion, for example.

Yes, it makes it unlikely that you will be prosecuted especially being that we are all infinitely small fishes in a very big pond. But once again, saying that it's irrelevant is, in my view, irresponsible.

Also consider the fact that your government may protect you in your own country of origin, as long as that is where you are located. If you end up on one of their lists for failure to comply with the act and get flagged as a tax evasion offender, they are free to pick you up and do whatever they want with you the moment you set foot on european soil.

Hi pixelware,

In another thread (see this link), we did note that we are compliant with the EU VAT regulations as we actively collect and remit VAT from the buyer's country of origin with proper documentation for location, etc. This is part of the value we provide product vendors with our service.

Thanks,
The ClickBank Team

JVZoo just added a feature to deal with VAT:

"With the topic of the new VAT laws going into effect, as always we put our heads down and got to work to give you the best solution. While we could have stopped at just reporting, we took a little time to think about all the different options you as the vendor may want to have. You can see below what is currently live on JVZoo as well as what will be in production before the end of the year.

Currently included and live:

Allow a customer to choose to collect VAT for EU or not.

If YES - the vendor (a)pick what to charge and (b)how to charge
a) Choose to charge vendor's country (2014 rules) OR charge the buyer's country (2015 rules).
b) Choose to add VAT to the products price (customer pays) or make the price include the VAT (vendor pays out of their profits)

We are recording country, ip and vat amount for each transaction which will be available for download with transaction details.

1) If you are charging the customer, we show them the country for their IP - with the ability for them to change their country to their home country if they are traveling or using a proxy.

2) Ability for UK vendors to NOT charge UK customers (but will charge other EU countries)

Not Live Yet, But In Production Before First Of The Year

3) If VAT is going to be charged, the ability for a customer to declare they are a VAT registered business and that information is recorded with the transaction.

4) VAT Summary Report - select date range and we will show you total amounts collected for each country

5) Detailed VAT information on detailed sales export

6) MOSS Upload Report - if we can find examples of the data format of what MOSS is expecting we will add that as well in the future

As always, our goal is to make your job as easy as we can. We’ll keep bringing you the features to make that happen so you can keep working on your business!

Have a great day,
Your JVZoo Team"

I've only read parts of this thread, but is just wanted to make sure that it is fine still to sell on WarriorPlus, right? Based on what I have read so far, it doesn't seem like too much of a deal. Would I need to start using JVZOO?

This thread interested me and so I decided to dig a little deeper. It seems that if you are selling WSO's or providing you are using a third party or payment processor such as warrior plus, jvzoo, paypal etc then it is their responsibility to figure out the VAT to be added and charged to each individual country and not the vendor itself, kind of like what Clickbank is already doing.

Don't look for excuses to not take action... just like JVzoo added the VAT option, and others like clickbank, you can do whatever you want, legally...

The EU can't chase you outside of their jurisdiction, so if you are a resident of a country outside of that rubbish union, you shouldn't be too concerned. I'm certainly not concerned, and neither is my accountant or solicitor.

This is an interesting post. If I am a product creator based in the UK and my JV partner is based in the US. We have a product registered on JV Zoo and they are listed as the vendor. We have a profit share arrangement. Does that make me exempt as technically, I am not the vendor and they are selling it.

Guess what...if it's this complicated for just a handful of Warriors here, it's definitely going to be stuff of nightmares for those enforcing such trash. I'm sure it's going to take a backseat while the fatsos try to figure out things over kebabs and booze. This is just so impractical!

I'll wait until Paypal tells me I have to change something. If that happens I'm confident they will take care of it for me.

If someone in the EU wants to come looking for me, over a few dollars they "claim" I owe, all I can say is, "Come get some!"

As mentioned by several others, EU has no jurisdiction over the U.S. for collecting taxes. If someday the U.S. changes its tax laws to compel collection of these taxes, I'll worry about it then. No need losing sleep over something that will not affect me for now.

As a US citizen I'm going to completely ignore this nonsense. And as for a taxman from a European country ending up on my doorstep - NOT going to happen - EVER. There is absolutely NO WAY that this can be enforced in the United States, in fact from what I've read most states have lined up to deem it unconstitutional. We have enough problems with the US economy as it is. I sincerely doubt that the US would ever allow a EU tax law to put thousands of small business people out of business. Furthermore, I doubt we'll ever see the day that thousands of US citizens have to pay taxes to another country on top of their own.

I welcome the day I even receive some kind of correspondence telling me that I owe taxes to a foreign country. Why? It would make great kindling for my fireplace. Or better yet, I could keep it in the bathroom in case I run out of toilet paper.

But seriously though, this is one of those things that people hear about and all of a sudden widespread panic occurs as people imagine their online businesses crumbling. In the end, Internet Marketing will stay as strong as ever, networks like JVZoo and Warrior Plus will figure out a way to integrate this into their system, and it will be business as usual again before you know it.

In fact, I received a memo when I logged into JVZoo the other day regarding VAT, so they are already working on it I presume.

I didn't bother to read the memo because I could really care less about that VAT. All I know is any tax money I pay will be paid to the government of The United States and never any other country (unless I move to that country, of course).

is this law also effective for affiliates also? someone please...

This is supposedly "The #1 Internet Marketing Forum & Marketplace", yet it seems to be home to many people who want to do international business whilst paying no attention at all to any international laws that may be involved in that process. If you trade with those countries then you should abide by their laws.

I thought this was a place for discussing legitimate business, not a home for fly-by-night tax evaders (especially ones foolish enough to publicly gloat about it). Don't the moderators care about posts that blatantly discuss law-breaking?

Am I missing something here?

UK sellers cannot collect VAT unless they are registered for VAT, fill out returns etc. There is no obligation to register for VAT unless your turnover is in excess of £84,000 ($130,000) per annum. So that's me covered for any WSO's I release in 2015.

Should I charge the customers VAT rates of their country or my country? Or my server location country? And how am I supposed to pay EU the VAT that I collect from customers?

Why on earth did the governments create VAT. Arghhh...

Not sure if I'm in the wrong boat or not but some US states charge sales tax for quiet some time and EU Citizens are also used to pay sales tax when they buy something so guess they are used to see a VAT on top of the sales price.

Another beast is when the processor don't comply, but IMO if you are not shuffle tons of sales they hardly have the manpower to go after you in another country for charging a few hundred bucks.

This is not a recommendation to ignore it tough, just saying that the dust may settle first to see how this will be applicable in real time.

G.

It is spreading across the Globe

Noticed this move by Chinese Government on online sales

Here is the Link: Taobao Owners to Be First Affected by Citizen's Tax ID

It appears to me that there is a World Wide Government move to hit On line sales via tax collection

Getting more and more difficult to keep up with all these laws. I know it is the price of doing business, but there ought to be some kinda of uniformity.