Online Marketplaces Become Responsible for VAT

Online marketplaces in the EU (such as Amazon, Ebay etc.) will become responsible for charging and collecting VAT for their non-EU sellers in an attempt to recover EUR 5 billion in VAT fraud. European Commission (EC), and ECOFIN finance ministers reached a decision in March and over the last couple of months they have discussed implementation regulations. It will now pass to the European Parliament for implementation on January 1, 2021.

Marketplaces become responsible for non-EU sellers VAT collections:
· On goods up to EUR 150 (value) sold on their platforms; and
· All goods sold on their platform where the seller uses fulfilment centers.
Non-EU sellers will be responsible for the import, and import VAT to facilitate this, and then they perform a zero-rated sale to the marketplace where the goods cross an EU border. The marketplace would then perform a VAT-rated domestic sale to the customer. Non-EU sellers will be able to use the One-Stop-Shop (OSS) VAT return to recover import VAT.

One-Stop-Shop single EU VAT returns
The One-Stop-Shop (OSS) single EU VAT return will enable EU and non-EU sellers to report all their sales through a single return to their national tax authorities. This ends the requirement for multiple EU VAT returns for e-commerce sellers, thereby ending the need for distance selling threshold simplification. In other words VAT reporting and filing will get more streamlined. Our VAT expert team will continue to manage VAT returns for U.S. and Canadian companies doing business in the EU, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

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